In the Wake of Angels
by M. D. Jensen
Summary: Demons poison Jimmy, forcing Castiel to take another host. When his new body turns out to be female, Dean finds himself with some unexpected feelings. Meanwhile, Sam trains Jimmy as a hunter, and some local vampires are causing trouble... D/C. Char death.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own any recognizable characters. I am earning no profit from this.

Timeframe: This takes place during a hypothetical season 5. I have made a number of assumptions about the first part of the season: that Sam has detoxed, that Anna has been put back into play, and that Cas has been around pretty much constantly and at the same time has been gradually losing his connection to Heaven. I wasn't interested in writing all that, so I decided to set this fic slightly in the future.

Summary: A demon attack leaves Jimmy an unfit vessel for Castiel. Now Sam must help Jimmy detox from demon blood, and Dean must cope with some odd feelings when Cas returns as a woman. Dean/Cas (male and female). Warnings for language and violence.

_In the Wake of Angels: Part I_

In the beginning, when God had first created angels, He had made them to feel nothing but love. For God was love and the angels were God-- His children, His extensions, His miniatures. And so all angels came into being knowing nothing else. But soon after the creation of other creatures, love in the heart of one angel twisted and became something new. And Lucifer learned hatred, and fell.

The wars began, and the angels were called upon to become soldiers. And there was no longer only love in their hearts, but fear as well. And this was how it remained for ages, with love and fear the only acceptable emotions for angels to experience. But as all things do, angels evolved, and they began to learn new emotions: strange, conflicting emotions for a strange, conflicting world.

For Castiel, the third emotion learned was confusion. It seemed to it an offshoot of fear, but less frantic, more prolonged. It was also how Castiel learned that emotions connected, for fear made it easier to be confused, and confusion made it easier to be afraid.

Castiel did not like being confused; it did not like that it could no longer be sure of what to do or whom to trust. It did not like the way that confusion ate away at one's soul, leaving it bare, vulnerable. And it most certainly did not like how confusion could flare up at the most inopportune of moments, leaving one dizzy, unaware, minds on matters far from relevant.

***

_Spring 2010, West Virginia_

"Cas! Behind you!" At Dean's cry, Castiel spun in place, swinging his arm out as he went to sucker-punch a demon that had been lunging at him in a sneak attack while the angel had been glancing over at Dean instead of paying attention. As though Dean really needed his constant protection in battle. Although, Dean had to fight a protective urge as well when he tried to look away; as his connection to Heaven grew looser, Castiel grew less and less able to protect himself and his vessel, and Dean couldn't deny that his instincts for keeping the angel safe had intensified to nearly rival the instincts he had to protect Sam. But he couldn't; he couldn't watch Castiel's efforts and keep up with his own at the same time, and so reluctantly he looked away, thankfully just in time to avoid a groin kick from the demon in front of him.

They were closing in on Lucifer now, Dean though, but naturally the more of a threat they posed, the more demons were deployed to keep them away. It seemed that these little ambushes were happening a few times a week now, and with Sammy's skills seriously diminished without a steady regimen of demon blood , it was weighing with increasing severity on Dean's mind that they might never make it to the final battle, slaughtered instead in some undignified show-down with an anonymous underling demon.

This particular demon, in fact, seemed keen on being the one to do it. It was a simple black-eyes, but possessing a giant bodybuilder of a man, the vessel's natural abilities making the demon just that much harder to take. Dean was throwing at it all the hand-to-hand combat he could think of, but he had already taken a rib-cracking blow to the chest, and blood in one eye from a punch there was making it hard to see.

"Sammy!" Dean howled. He hated to do it, hated to ask his brother to use up one of his an instant exorcisms when, video game-like, he seemed to be allotted only a few per battle before his newly shallow energy reserves ran out. But Dean couldn't get a handle on this one-- couldn't get out the Latin between ducks and punches-- and so he saw no other choice. So he shouted, Sammy noticed, and they smoothly executed what Dean had begun to secretly refer to as a bait-n-switch; as quickly as they could, they began to back their respective fights towards each other, until they were close enough to pull it off. Then Sam turned, arm already extended, and instantly the gigantic demon was held fast in his spell. Dean, meanwhile, had taken the demon Sam had been fighting by surprise, whipping his neck back and pouring holy water down his vessel's throat, buying him enough time for an old-fashioned verbal exorcism. When that demon was gone, he looked to Sam, and found that he'd successfully handled the giant as well.

They realized in the same moment that something was wrong; no more demons came at them, when there had been dozens waiting in the wings for their turn to spar with a Winchester brother. The park where they'd encountered the demons was far too quiet for a battlefield now, far too early into the battle.

"Where's Cas?" Sam asked breathlessly. Dean looked to the spot where he'd last seen the angel and found it empty.

They ran. Calling the angel's name, they sprinted through the park, listening for breathing, watching for a flash of tan trenchcoat in the dim, post-midnight light. "Castiel!" Dean screamed, his heart pumping now. "Cas, where are you?"

"Dean!" His brother, not the angel, had called his name. Dean turned and was tripping towards the sound of Sam's voice before he even heard the next words: "he's over here!"

The scene that Dean stumbled upon had him instantly sick with fear and repulsion; he barreled in without thinking, attacking the first demon he could reach, but was simply thrown back. Sam, similarly, was having little effect on them, going at the exorcism full-force, nose bleeding, chest heaving.

Before them, in a cluster of trees, demons swarmed Castiel like ants on a crumb-- no, like vultures on roadkill. Cas lay prone, pinned to the ground and unable to lift his arms, while a dozen or so demons absolutely assaulted him. And as Dean and Sam watched, they all drew knives and _cut_ on him. Shallow cuts, mostly, but they were everywhere: his arms, his chest, even his face. And in the frenzy, it seemed, they were cutting each other as well, so that blood was flying everywhere, staining the grass in the clearing.

"Cas!" Dean shouted, but something strangled the sound in his throat-- bile, maybe, or maybe he trying not to cry. "Get away from him, you fuckers!" But as before, his attacks had no effect on the demons; in fact they seemed to ignore him, so that he fell to punching and kicking their writhing backs, screaming as he did so.

Then something happened that Dean could not immediately wrap his head around: there was a sound like a tornado ripping through the clearing, then a flash of blue-white light that left Dean temporarily sightless. And a moment later when his vision began to fade back in, his found the demons gone, and Castiel alone and unmoving in the grass.

"Cas!" He choked, lurching forward to the angel's side. But something caught him back unexpectedly.

"Dean, wait." It was Sam's voice.

"What?" Dean growled.

"Are your hands cut?"

"What?"

"Your hands-- are they cut?"

Dean blinked, confused and still half-blind, and looked down at his hands. "No."

"Okay," Sam said, and released him. Dean rushed to Castiel's side, assessing the damage, sighing with relief when he found him breathing, wriggling slightly in pain.

"Careful," Sam warned, coming up behind him. "He's covered in demon blood. Don't get any on an open wound." Understanding why Sam had held him back now, Dean looked briefly back at his brother and saw his mouth working. He knew that it was taking incredible willpower for Sam not to lunge at Cas and lick up every drop he could, and Dean felt both heartbroken and incredibly proud. He didn't dwell on it, though, instead turning back to Castiel, who was moaning now, coming around. He looked like a victim in a horror movie; blood covered him from head to toe, soaking his clothes, freshly oozing out of cuts all over his skin, beginning to congeal in the crevices of his face and tangles of his hair.

"Cas," Dean said roughly. "Cas, can you hear me?"

"No..." Cas moaned in reply.

Nervous laughter bubbled out of Dean's mouth at his answer. "No, you can't hear me?"

"No," the croaking voice repeated. "No… not… Cas."

Even as he tried to find another possible meaning behind the words, Dean knew it was true, and his heart sank. "Jimmy?" he asked quietly.

Jimmy nodded.

A sudden, inexplicable loneliness flooded over Dean like a bucket of cold water. He looked around at Sammy, just confirming his presence. "Cas is gone," he marveled. "Sammy. What happened?"

"I don't know," Sam admitted. "But we've got a bigger problem, Dean: last time Jimmy was by himself, he was gutshot. Without Cas in there, he might be…"

Sam didn't finish his sentence, but he didn't have to. Dean's pulse, if possible, quickened further. He thought of Meg; thought of all the other demons who had held their vessels bodies together with their presence, leaving them to die when they fled. Did it work the same for angels? Dean didn't know. Frantically, he ripped Jimmy's shirt open, pulling away the ruined, reddened fabric. Here too, blood was everywhere, and Dean resorted to using his hands to wipe some away, checking the wounds underneath for severity, for anything that wasn't made by a knife. But a minute later he had to stop and sigh in relief at what had been obvious all along. Although it seemed impossible for them to have any sort of good luck nowadays, Jimmy's bullet wound was nowhere at all to be found.

"He's okay, Sammy," Dean breathed out, although cut to pieces did seem to be stretching the definition of 'okay', just a bit. To Jimmy, he said, "on your feet," and Jimmy complied, shakily, leaning on Dean for support.

"What… happened?" He groaned, clutching at his left bicep, which seemed to bear the largest wound.

"Let's get you cleaned up first," Dean said, gently but with an air of command behind it. Slowly, together, they began to limp towards the car, Sammy scouting along the path a safe distance ahead of them. "Then," Dean added, almost as an afterthought and almost to himself, "we will find out."


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer, timeframe, summary: see first chapter.

_In the Wake of Angels: Part II_

Once Jimmy had showered and borrowed a pair of sweatpants from Dean, the brothers set about cleaning his wounds. Jimmy was in shock, it seemed, and said nothing while he lay on the bed like a practice medical dummy. There was none of the nervous energy he'd exhibited last time this had happened; none of the almost stoner-like confusion and boundless hunger. His only movement was a slight shivering as Dean rubbed him down with Neosporin like he was covering a pale child with sunblock. Only three or four of the cuts looked deep enough to require real bandaging; one or two probably could have done with stitches, but that was a luxury that didn't even cross Dean's mind as a real option. A dozen or so other smaller cuts were covered with Band-aids. It was a fair patch job, but Dean was still worried. The last thing they needed was Jimmy to come down with an infection.

As though reading his mind, Sam disappeared briefly into the bathroom, and reappeared a moment later, shaking an orange cylinder. "We've got about three bottles of amoxicillin left. More than enough for him to take it until the worst of it heals. Jimmy," he said, addressing Jimmy directly for the first time Dean could remember. "Are you allergic to any antibiotics?" Jimmy shook his head as he struggled into the shirt that Dean had just given him. "Good." Sam opened the bottle, shook a pill out and handed it to Jimmy. Jimmy took it, then blinked up at him.

"Um," he said, sounding like he was trying to express annoyance, but couldn't muster it. "Could I have some water maybe?"

"Oh. Yeah." Sam retreated to the bathroom again and returned with a glass. Like stitches, needing a drink to swallow a pill was something that simply didn't enter a Winchester mind.

"Okay," Dean said, after he'd watched Jimmy take the medicine. "What the _hell_ happened to Cas?" Jimmy stared blankly up at him, and Dean sighed.

"I actually have a theory," Sam said quietly, settling down on the bed next to Dean, opposite Jimmy.

"Well," Dean drawled. "Do tell, professor."

"Demon blood," Sam said quietly. "The demons weren't just cutting Cas, they were cutting themselves too." Dean remembered that; he'd written it off as a product of all the confusion in their little pile of a blood orgy. "I think they were trying to infect Jimmy's body with their blood so he'd be unfit to host Cas anymore. Sort of force Cas out, take him out of the picture for a while 'til he finds a new vessel. If they can't kill an angel, at least they can incapacitate him."

Dean shivered at the implications of Sammy's words, but it was Jimmy who spoke first. "There's… demon blood… in me?" He demanded, his voice very nearly a squeak.

"If I'm right," Sam continued. "If that's really what they were trying to do, then yeah. It tainted you, made you unable to be a vessel."

Jimmy blinked, absorbing that, and Dean waited, full of questions but unwilling to speak up just yet. "Is it still in me?" Jimmy said finally. Dean glanced over at Sam, who didn't meet his eyes.

"Yeah," Sam told him.

"So… what does that mean?"

"Demon blood is like a drug," Sam explained, looking awkward. "It's almost like a steroid. It can make you stronger but you come to depend on it."

Jimmy blinked again. "What now?"

"Now… you're gonna come down," Sam admitted. Dean could hear the twinge of helplessness undercutting the words. "You're gonna detox," Sam continued. "Hopefully it won't be that bad since you've only had the blood once. But I honestly don't know."

"Detox," Jimmy parroted weakly, looking like he was struggling to understand the words being spewed at him.

Dean spoke at last. "Should we take him to Bobby's?"

Sam's face pinched in like he hated his answer even before he gave it. "Even the way you drive, Bobby's a day away at least. I think it's best to ride it out here and hope it won't be as bad." _As bad as mine_, Dean filled in for him. Sam's first detox had been terrible; he still hadn't told Dean everything that had happened to him, but the screams that had filled Bobby's house had been enough to paint an adequate picture. But though his first had been bad, his second had made a cakewalk of it, even though they'd at least had his cooperation that time. Sam had screamed like knives were going through him for a day, followed by two days of hallucinations so vivid he ended up breaking his own arm before they were through. Then there had been a final day of unconsciousness that seemed nearly a coma, until finally on the fifth day Sam had opened his eyes and smiled weakly at Dean, who had grabbed him up in his arms and cried helplessly into his hair, no longer caring about the Winchester aversion to hugs.

Dean hoped like hell that Jimmy's wouldn't be like that, since like Sam said he'd only been exposed once. But Castiel's exit him had already left him so weak, and he hadn't ever experienced demon blood before, while Sam had. So really, it was just a matter of wait-and-see, as it often was.

They didn't have to wait long. The shivering that Dean had attributed to shock only intensified with time, until Dean caught on to the fact that it was more than just stress and exhaustion. Jimmy seemed coherent, though still wordless and morose; he lay on the bed, silently riding out the shaking and sweating, while Sam flipped through the channels on the tiny motel TV and tried to get a response from him regarding what show he'd prefer. Dean paced the room, armed, on guard, waiting for it to get worse.

But it didn't really seem to-- at least, not 'worse' in their sense of the word. Jimmy managed to drift off for a while before bolting out of bed and to the bathroom, where Dean listened with sympathy as he retched repeatedly, Castiel's nonexistent eating habits leaving him nothing to bring up. But although Jimmy might realistically have argued, it wasn't that bad. It seemed if anything like a case of stomach flu, something he could ride out, no reason to panic.

The night continued like this and eventually the sun rose, finding Jimmy curled on the floor of the bathroom with a pillow and blanket, tossing fitfully but sleeping nevertheless. Finally relaxing for the first time in nearly half a day, Dean was starting to feel the blows he'd taken from the gigantic demon, only hours before but so, so long ago-- before Castiel had been poisoned out of Jimmy's body, relegated to parts unknown.

"I don't think we both need to be up with him anymore," Sam said at last, coming over to where Dean was habitually standing by the door, though not guarding them from anything specific. "You should get some sleep."

Dean held out his fist in a rock-paper-scissors position. Sleep sounded fantastic, but he wasn't willing to take the first nap just like that. "Play you for it."

But Sam shook his head. "You took more hits in that fight. You should sleep first. Seriously," he added.

Though his chest was aching and his left eye was heavy and swollen, Dean's instinct was still to take the first solo watch, as it always had been. But something in Sam's eyes swayed him; he seemed almost to want to be the one watching over Jimmy. "Dean. I've got this."

_Oh right_, Dean realized. _Detox buddies_. Who better to see Jimmy through a demon blood come-down than the only other person they knew to have been through one himself?

"Okay," Dean relented, turning away from the door with a body that was suddenly stiff and weak. "Well. You know where to find me." He laughed because nothing in their current motel room was more than two giant steps from the next thing. Sam didn't laugh, but Dean didn't mind, instead dropping into bed still fully dressed and falling asleep the moment his eyes were shut. Mmm… _sleep_.

***

Dean woke to the sound of two frantic voices, one flat-out screaming, one calling his name. He was on his feet before his eyes were fully open-- _owowow_-- and looking around the room, dizzy from the position change, heart already racing.

They were on the next bed, both on their knees; Sam was behind Jimmy, arms around his chest, restraining him as he tried again and again to launch himself off the bed. And Jimmy was screaming, sometimes just noise and sometimes a name. _Claire_.

"He thinks his daughter's dead," Sam shouted above the racket. _No duh_, Dean felt like replying, but bit it back. He'd been wondering how long it would take for the rest of the Novaks to come into play. Jimmy hadn't asked for them this time; Dean had thought maybe he'd learned his lesson, but apparently the inevitable had just been delayed by the poisoning. But here was his greatest fear resurfacing: harm to his wife or his little girl.

"Is there any talking to him? I mean, you think we can bring him out of it?"

Grimly, Sam shook his head. "You couldn't talk me out of any of it."

"It's still worth a shot." He climbed up on the bed next to Jimmy, wrapping an arm around his shoulders, getting closer than he was strictly comfortable with but hoping it would help. "Jimmy. Listen to me. Jimmy Novak. It's Dean. Okay? Dean Winchester. Listen: you're hallucinating. That's not Claire." He squeezed Jimmy's shoulder, hoping to emphasize his point. "That's not your daughter. Can you hear me? That isn't her. _Jimmy_." There was no reaction, not even a flicker.

"He can't hear you, Dean," Sam sighed, struggling more now to restrain the flailing man. "Could you take him for a second?"

Dean slid off the bed and back on behind Jimmy, grabbing him around the chest and holding him put. Sam sat back, rubbing his tired arms and grimacing. "I don't think there's anything for it but to ride it out," he remarked, and his reply was Dean _oof_ing loudly as he took an elbow to his gut.

"Thank you, Captain Optimism," Dean snapped. Restraining Jimmy-- who was actually sort of smallish, Dean realized, completely unimposing on his own-- would normally have been relatively easy task, but not when his rib was cracked and his whole chest bruised. He knew Sam was right, though. "How much sleep did I get?"

"I dunno. Two hours?"

"Yeah. Eh." Dean sighed, dropping his head, holding onto Jimmy with his whole body now. Suddenly, catching him off guard, he realized how much he missed Castiel-- and not just because his dramatic exit had left such a trail of disaster in its wake. He just missed having him there, missed talking to him, sitting with him. Weird. And far from relevant now.

Jimmy's screams slowly became sobs-- mourning, Dean knew, over what he saw as the body of his daughter. Gradually he released his hold, letting Jimmy fall bonelessly to the mattress, giving him privacy during what was genuine grief, albeit for an imaginary girl. He retreated, leaning back against the headboard next to Sam, staring off into space and wishing for time to speed up a bit. Or slow down. Or something.

Suddenly the sounds of crying stopped, and Jimmy's body went tense, his hallucination shifting. Dean jumped to his feet and Sam lurched forward to the foot of the bed, ready to restrain him if it turned violent once again.

"You!" Jimmy growled, head still tilted down, and Dean tried to tell if there was any way he was talking to him or Sammy. "_You_!" He screeched again. "Castiel, you bastard! You said you'd keep her safe!"

For a moment, Dean allowed himself to hope that this wasn't imaginary, that Castiel really was in the room with then. But then Jimmy lunged off the bed, headed towards the door, and Dean only just tackled him in time.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer, timeframe, summary: see first chapter.

I know that this isn't the kind of update you guys were hoping for, so the next one will be very soon, promise. But this was necessary for plot-- you understand, right?

_In the Wake of Angels: Part III_

Jeanette Murphy bowed her head before her plate, trying to tune out the sounds of the bustling cafeteria around her as she prayed. The same uncomfortable hush as always fell over the table; even after four years, her college friends were not used to the idea of prayer before meals. But Jeanette didn't mind if they found it strange, or found her strange for doing it. Her faith had been the only thing to keep her going through difficult times in her twenty-one years of life, and she meant every word that she recited in her head. She was grateful for the food on her plate, for her health and her studies, and for her friends, even if she could feel their sheepish glances sliding over her. And she truly meant it when she asked the Lord how to better serve Him, when she offered herself up to whatever He needed from her. Anything at all.

As Jeanette was finishing up, a sort of quiet fell over the cafeteria. Different from the half-embarrassed murmur of her friends, this spread through the entirety of the large room. All conversation had become tense, stifled; there was an eeriness to it that she couldn't quite place. But then she finished, opened her eyes and came out of her own, small world to find that the lights had gone out from the thunderstorm howling away outside. The atmosphere in the cafeteria was that of a hundred students going about their eating and reading in newly inadequate lighting. She shrugged off her initial chill and rejoined her lunchmates' conversation; nothing seemed as weird or ominous with your eyes open, after all.

***

Later the storm had calmed, and classes were over for the week; Jeanette was headed back to her apartment to start in on a paper for a class on Nazi Germany. She was giving it little thought though, concentrating more on avoiding the puddles that the storm had left in its wake. The sky above was still cloudy; perhaps the rain would resume later. For now, though, she was grateful for the pause that was allowing her to walk home without taking a shower at the same time.

And Jeanette was thinking to herself. Sort of. It had been hard, being alone since the car crash, and she had developed a habit that was a combination of prayer, conversation and, she supposed, an invisible friend, though she knew she should have outgrown that long ago. But often as she walked, she pictured someone beside her. Maybe not God or Jesus; that felt like it was asking too much. A guardian angel, maybe. Just a presence, a companion, going about the day with her. Maybe she was crazy. But hey, it kept her warm at night.

At the moment she was thinking about faith; it was not like holding a conversation so much as letting her thoughts run around in her head and sometimes finding that they came back almost changed, almost not her own any longer. She was thinking about tangible evidence of God and how it shouldn't be necessary, really, but that it would be pretty nice to be thrown a little scrap now and again. Then again when God had walked among humans in biblical times, it hadn't always seemed like such a good thing. Maybe He showed up and proved Himself, but then sometimes He went and asked you to kill your only child. He stopped you, of course, but still… maybe it wasn't worth it. Maybe faith should be enough; maybe it had to be.

Hm. Jeanette knew that was kind of bull. The pleasant smell of the rainy campus and her morning victory over a German exam had put her in a good and accepting mood, but she knew that however content she was at the moment, she wanted proof. Always had. Always would. Maybe that made her a bad person… or maybe it just made her human. She sighed, letting her mind go blank, her eyes still on the ground in front of her.

_Look ahead_.

Jeanette started. She was used to her thoughts taking on a slightly random, almost foreign quality, but this one had genuinely caught her off guard. It had come out of nowhere at all.

_Look ahead_.

And something in her gut compelled her to-- not in a destiny sense, but in a literal sense; she raised her head and looked.

_What am I supposed to be seeing?_ She asked herself. In front of her was a college campus like any other on a rainy day; the grass was bright green, looking lonely with no one playing Frisbee on it; buildings of clashing architectural styles stuck up from the ground like monuments; and a smattering of students and professors rushed from one to the other with umbrellas held high. It was the sort of rhythmic energy that made her so enjoy the college life; nothing seemed out of place.

_Look_, the voice urged. _See_.

A group of boys hurried by her, hoods pulled up over their heads; Jeanette thought that maybe she'd had a class with the tallest of them-- maybe English? A grey-haired woman in a pantsuit rushed by, dwarfed by her enormous pink umbrella, struggling to manage it while digging through her briefcase at the same time. She fumbled and almost dropped it.

Almost dropped her _umbrella_.

And Jeanette saw: it was still raining. Everyone else on in the campus square was drenched. She looked down at the ground, still covered with puddles from the storm that she thought had ended. In the distance they rippled but at her feet, their surfaces were still. She looked at herself; her skin was dry, her clothes not darkened by the rain, though she'd been outside for almost ten minutes. She walked forward, and still there was nothing. It didn't seem possible, but there was no denying it.

It was raining on everyone but her.

Jeanette hurried back to the apartment, now matching pace with all those running for shelter. Not only was she spooked, she didn't want anyone noticing her dry hair and clothes. Although, what could they possibly think if they did notice? That she was a lucky girl, the recipient of some freak meteorological blessing? How could it be anything else? How could anyone even entertain that possibility? And still she couldn't shake the feeling that something was going on; she felt like she was standing in front of an ocean, vast and deep, and being urged to step into it. But how much sense did that make?

She tried to calm her nerves by showering when she got home, leaving her hair wet, making her indistinguishable from those who had been rained on outside. But she couldn't chase away that uneasy feeling. Working on her paper proved a useless endeavor, and she turned down her roommates' suggestion of hitting the bar to celebrate the end of another week of academia. Instead she milled around uselessly, channel surfing, straightening up first her room and then the kitchenette. Eventually she fell into a restless sleep, splayed out on the couch under a communal afghan. And before long, she dreamed.

She dreamed of the rain, of looking out the window and watching it fall. She dreamed of walking outside, untouched by it, and praying for it to fall on her as well. But the moment she began to feel its gentle slide on her skin, she realized that once again something seemed strange; a glance around the deserted campus square showed that it was only raining on her, singling her out once again. She shivered; wind howled by her, blowing her bangs into her eyes, and she knew, quite profoundly, that she was not alone. When the wind blew again, she listened more closely, and could have sworn that she heard her name carried on it, as though from very far away.

_Jeanette_.

"Here I am," she called. "Here I am!"

"Jeanette."

It was most definitely a voice now, but one unlike anything she had ever heard. It was wind, and waves, and static, and the actual words it spoke seemed to occur to her almost as an afterthought, as though her brain had to work through them first, too stunned by the initial beautiful sound that wasn't-- couldn't be-- a human voice.

"Jeanette."

Not fearfully, but almost bashfully, she turned and looked at the angel. That's what it had to be, she reasoned; what else could explain it? It was roughly the shape of a person, with a head, two arms and two legs, but it was nothing like a person could ever hope it be. It _glowed_; no features marred its perfect radiance. It was a star molded to look like a man; it was the opposite of a shadow, an outline filled in with pure light. Her eyes burned to see it but she couldn't look away; she fell to her knees before it, gaze still glued to its brilliance.

"No. Rise," it commanded. She did. "Jeanette Michelle Murphy," it said. "You are needed."

Jeanette knew she should be afraid. She knew she should run, or better yet try to wake up. But instead she nodded. "What do I do?" And it told her. Then it raised its arm and touched her forehead, and disappeared.

When Jeanette awoke she realized one thing immediately: she couldn't move. Panic washed over her, momentarily erasing all memory of her dream. She'd heard stories of this; it was some sort of weird sleep thing where REM-state paralysis didn't wear off when it should have. A friend who'd had it happen to him had told her that she could snap out of it if she could just muster the movement of one finger, so Jeanette tried. Nothing happened. She tried again; still nothing. Her chest felt heavy. She wasn't sure if she was breathing. And then-- impossibly-- she was moving, picking herself up off the sofa, but it wasn't her own mind doing it.

It was then that she remembered the dream; remembered an angel named Castiel coming upon her, asking permission to enter her body in order to move about the earth. She remembered agreeing; remembered feeling humbled and loved and overjoyed to be called to do God's work. She remembered feeling blessed. Now she only felt afraid.

Still her body moved without her permission; still she couldn't feel the carpet under her bare feet, or control which way her eyes were looking. She was a prisoner in her own head. But no, this was some freakish dream, or some bizarre sort of sleepwalking. It couldn't be that the dream was real; it couldn't be that this was actually happening. Could it?

_Castiel_? Jeanette asked, small, scared. She wanted to close her eyes, wanted to wrap her arms around herself. But neither seemed possible. _Castiel_? She asked again.

_I am here_, the voice replied, and although she was still petrified the sound of it soothed her. _You are with me now_.

It was a dream, it had to be, but either way, it didn't seem that she could do anything about it. If it was a dream, she couldn't wake up; if it wasn't… well then, she didn't know what to do. In her head, without sound, she whimpered.

_You are afraid_, Castiel said. _I am sorry. You should have had more time to prepare for this. But the situation was dire. You were needed._

And then, Jeanette got it. She knew beyond any doubt that there was an angel inside her body and that she was now officially along for the ride. An angel of the Lord had called on her for help; she had been chosen. She was doing holy work.

But still she didn't feel any less terrified. What could possibly be good about an _angel_ characterizing a situation as _dire_?


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer, timeframe, summary: see first chapter.

_In the Wake of Angels: Part IV_

Of course, it hadn't been Castiel that Jimmy had seen, just a hallucination, one which he screamed himself hoarse at. After that, he watched his wife die, and then his daughter once again. Sam and Dean did what they could, which wasn't much more than preventing him from physically harming himself further.

Sam's heart was breaking for Jimmy, no question about it; he could remember the havoc that a tortured and twisted subconscious could wreak when spurred on by something like substance withdrawal. And adding to Jimmy's ordeal was a physical element that Sam hadn't had to go through; it seemed that whenever his hallucinations paused long enough for them to all catch their breath, Jimmy was back in the bathroom, puking air. It didn't seem that he was going to get any sort of a break at all. And in this manner, the hours of the day crawled slowly by.

When the sun had long been set and they'd gone through all the rations of candy bars and cereal kept in their motel room, Dean left to bring back supplies from the 24-hour convenience store down the road. It wasn't that Sam was too tired to drive, even though he was going two days without sleep-- no, he just didn't feel right leaving Jimmy with Dean. No matter how much Dean could sympathize with him, he didn't have a prayer of really _getting_ it like Sam did. That was something Sam was glad of. It wasn't a fun club to hold a membership in.

For now Jimmy was out cold; he'd fallen asleep on the floor of the bathroom and Sam had carried him out to a bed as gently as he could manage. Now, sweating and moaning, Jimmy slept, though Sam knew he probably found no rest from the horrible images there either. Sam sat on the other bed, leaning against the headboard, long legs pulled to his chest, and tried to stay awake. It was something he'd gotten used to from a very early age: forcing his eyes open for unnaturally long periods of time, staying alert when every muscle screamed for rest and his hands literally shook with tiredness. Despite that, though, when he jolted awake at a knock on the door, he knew he had drifted off. _Damn_. What would the consequences of his inattentiveness be? Not that he could have known of the approach of someone to the door. But if he was about to fight, any sort of residual sluggishness in his reactions, even by a split second, could spell disaster.

But, what kind of disaster knocked at the door? His list of acquaintances was short: Dean had a key, Bobby and Travis were across the county, and Castiel was… well, somewhere. Possibly across the universe. And no demon or other manner of hell creature would knock. So who? Was it possible that it was, for once, just a human-- a manager come to complain about the screaming from before, a late night pizza delivery kid with the wrong room number?

Yeah, right.

Shaking off his drowsiness, his whole body tense, Sam approached the door and pressed an eye to the peephole. Standing at his door was what appeared to be a human, but it certainly wasn't a motel manager or a pizza person. Illuminated by the light fixture by the door was a woman, young and with short dark hair, clad in jeans and an olive green shirt. She stood still and expectant, obviously not going to make the first move.

"Yes?" Sam called, hoping he could be heard through the door.

"Sam Winchester," the woman said. Something about her voice was familiar, though Sam couldn't immediately place it.

"Who are you?"

The woman looked up at the peephole, meeting his eye. "I am Castiel."

Something deep in Sam's gut consented to this immediately and unexpectedly, but his logical, operative side was not going to let a stranger in that easily. "If you're Castiel, why are you using the door?"

"I didn't want to startle you with my new vessel. May I come in now?"

So what, maybe a spirit that needed permission to enter? Or a demon that did? "Tell me the name of your last vessel's wife."

Was he being paranoid, or did 'Castiel' pause before answering? "Amelia."

Sam searched his mind for another question, surprised how few occurred to him in the spur of the moment. "What did you call me the first time I met you?"

"The boy with the demon blood."

"What… what mark did you leave on Dean when you pulled him out of Hell?"

"My handprint burned into his left upper arm. If you intend to use it for comparison, I warn you: it was more of a symbolic phenomenon."

"What did you… uh...?" Sam faltered.

"Sam," the woman cut him off. "I'm coming in whether you invite me or not."

Sam fished around for another question, but the woman was looking expectantly up at the peephole. There was something about her, Sam admitted… something in the dry cadence of her voice that made it believable. And after all, he'd seen Castiel in another body before. Sam opened the door and stepped back.

The woman stepped into the room and glanced about, taking in her surroundings. "Where's Dean?" Sam said nothing. "How's Jimmy?" At the silence, the woman turned, and was greeted by an unceremonious dousing of holy water.

It had no affect on her, nor did she react with anger, merely wiping it out of her eyes before speaking. "You still don't believe me?"

Sam's neck twitched, but he wasn't sure if he was about to nod or shake his head. He gritted his teeth instead. "If you're Cas, tell me. What happened?"

The woman sighed. "The demons attacked me with their blood. Jimmy could no longer host me with tainted blood in his system. I was… forced out. I located another vessel and returned as soon as I could. Where's Dean?"

_Dean_. Good. Sam hadn't thought of that: Dean would be returning any minute now. He'd be much better able than Sam to judge the accuracy of the woman's claim.

As though on cue, the doorknob rattled. The woman stepped away, giving it room, having come no more than two steps forward during her explanation. Dean entered, plastic bag handles looped around one wrist, and froze. He glanced between Sam and the newcomer, confusion in his eyes, but then the unasked question of _who the hell_ died on his lips. Instead, he frowned slightly, as though the lighting had changed, and asked, "Cas?"

Well. Sam supposed that was enough for him. He eased his finger off the trigger of the gun hidden in his pocket and let his muscles relax, glancing over at Dean, who conversely seemed to be tensing up. He was looking at the woman-- at Castiel-- like he didn't quite know what to do with her, like maybe he wanted to touch her, make sure she was real.

"You're a chick," he said at last. "Cas… you're a girl."

"My new vessel is a woman, yes."

"Why?"

Castiel cocked her head to the side, a familiar habit that looked odd in this new body. "Hers was the most compatible."

Dean just stared again, for a long, awkward moment. "What's her name?" He said finally.

"Jeanette Murphy."

"So Jimmy's completely off the table?"

"That remains to be seen," Castiel said vaguely, glancing over at her former vessel with an unreadable look in her eyes.

"Right. Okay. Well," Dean said, shaking himself off and turning to Sam. "Freaky angel stuff aside, if Jimmy's set for now I think it's time to eat." He held up the bags, a small, expectant smile on his face.

***

In the past few months, they'd learned to have Castiel around almost constantly, in the same way they'd (re-)learned four years ago to spend almost every waking minute together. Still, Castiel's new body made things strange again, and Sam wished for a distraction from the uncomfortable silence in which they ate.

Nothing came. Instead, he used the time to compare new Castiel to the older model. He'd done the same when Ruby had switched bodies, although in that case there hadn't been many similarities to speak of. This time there were a few: Castiel's new body had the same blue eyes, the same dark hair that was too short to classify as straight or wavy. Like Jimmy, she was of average height-- maybe slightly on the short side-- and average build.

Except, you know… for a girl.

But in the details, there were no similarities to be found. Jeanette Murphy was delicate, with a small nose, small lips and large, round eyes. Her cheekbones were high and narrow and her chin ended in a smooth point. There was none of the roughness, the angles, that Sam had come to associate with Castiel but which he supposed rightfully belonged to Jimmy. Still, it didn't seem right. Jeanette was the image of an angel that Sam would have conjured a year ago, back when angels wore halos and white robes and belonged on Hallmark cards and distant realities, not in real life. Before he'd met them, and learned that in truth, they were soldiers. Castiel now was everything he'd wanted an angel to be, and it was hard to remember that inside was the same cold, stern prick that had been saving their asses and giving them grief for well over a year now.

Or was it? In the past few months, something had seemed different about Castiel-- he'd been different, softer. More… human? Now that he was a she, this new gentility seemed all the most pronounced, although maybe it was just because of her newly tender face.

"Jimmy's awake," Dean said quietly, breaking Sam out of his reverie. Sam turned. Jimmy was indeed stirring, pushing himself up slowly, drowsily. Sam was at his side in a flash.

"Jimmy? You with us?"

The question seemed to puzzle him, and for a moment Sam's heart sank to think that the man still wasn't lucid. But then Jimmy nodded, exhaling slowly, and Sam grinned with relief. "How are you feeling?"

"Hungry," Jimmy slurred, and Sam laughed giddily. "Like, still nauseous, but really hungry." He sat up fully, looking around the room, his eyes falling immediately on the new arrival. "Castiel?" He guessed.

"Hello, Jimmy."

"So I really am last year's model now, huh?"

Castiel blinked like she didn't know how to reply. Instead she turned to Dean. "I'll be back soon. I need to… regroup. Find Anna. See if I missed anything this past day."

"Okay. Well, you know where we'll be." Sam could tell that Dean was about to say something more, but Jimmy's weak voice cut him off.

"Castiel?" All eyes turned to the bed. "While you're out and about, please check on my family." Jimmy's eyes were solemn and sad, his voice meek and helpless. "I'm not gonna try what I did last time, promise… I know I can't see them. But please look in on them for me?"

Castiel nodded. "I will." And then, she was gone.

Jimmy turned back to Sam. "Any food left?" He asked hopefully.

***

It had been a day since Castiel had fled Jimmy's body, a day spent cooped up in a dank, faceless motel room waiting for Jimmy to detox from his brief foray with demon blood. Midnight had once again come and gone and it was Friday, Dean thought, not that such things mattered very much to a hunter. Jimmy and Sam had both drifted off and Dean knew that he should sleep as well, but he couldn't close his eyes. Cas was a woman now? How was that for a curveball? He-- she-- was even kind of hot… in a meek, bible-study sort of way. This was too much. Too crazy. He sighed, the cracks in the ceiling blurring before his tired eyes. He stretched his legs out as far as he could, stopping when his feet pressed against the arm of the sofa, and relaxed again, trying to think sleepy thoughts. What sort of sleepy thoughts did he know of in his life, though? Honestly.

He rolled over, back to the room now, and forcefully shut his eyes. It seemed, though, that no rest would come. So he sat back up, staring listlessly over at the far bed, where Jimmy was splayed out under the sheets. How desperately he wanted… what? For Jimmy to sit up, be Cas again? For things to go back to the way they were? Dean knew that the body didn't really matter, but still, talking to girl Castiel, looking into her blue eyes, it was wrong. Too much green and not enough grey. He just wanted the old Cas back. _His_ Cas back.

Though Dean did not realize it, he fell asleep thinking of Castiel.

And he awoke, as well, to the angel, although this time it was version 2.0. The newly thin, newly female voice called his name quietly and he shot up, surprised to see full daylight outside. "Dean," Castiel said again. "I must speak with you."

"What's wrong?" Dean demanded, instantly awake, because it was easy to tell that something was.

"Outside. Please," Castiel requested, obviously distressed. But though they kept their voices low, Sam and Jimmy were awake now too.

"What's going on?" Sam asked, at the same time Jimmy asked, "Did you see them?"

"Please," Castiel repeated. "I must speak to Dean alone." Dean understood instinctively that Jimmy's presence was the problem, not Sam's, and was surprised when it seemed that Jimmy did too.

"Nu-uh," he growled. "I'm in on this too, Cas, you _brought_ me in. Whatever you say to them, I can hear."

"I don't think that's wise," Castiel replied smoothly, but Dean shook his head.

"Go on, Cas. He's right."

Something passed across Castiel's face; if Dean hadn't known better, he would have called it genuine pain. "Claire and Amelia Novak," she said slowly, "are dead."

Silence fell over the room; Dean could have sworn that his heart stopped for a moment, finding its own beat offensively loud. He could feel Sam's eyes turn on him, but he couldn't look away from Castiel's face.

And then time caught up to them, and Jimmy had Castiel in a strangle hold, pinning her roughly up against the wall and howling like a man possessed.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer, timeframe, summary: see first chapter.

_In the Wake of Angels: Part V_

Castiel was mildly surprised by how easily she was lifted off her feet and pressed against the wall; it was a consequence of a female vessel that she had not anticipated. It was not an unfamiliar sensation; demons, opponents in battle, had cornered her in this position before. But this time it was not a demon, just Jimmy-- although, granted, Jimmy was fueled at the moment by rage, which despite clouding human judgment did seem to enhance physical strength.

"You bastard!" Jimmy was screaming, retracting and thrusting his arms repeatedly so that Castiel was knocked against the wall. Inside of her, locked in her own body, Jeanette Murphy was crying with fear. "You told me they'd be safe and now they're dead! Because I tried to _help_ you, they're _dead_!"Although her head was now pinned back by Jimmy's arm, Castiel could see Dean and Sam, blurred in the bottom of her visual field, eyes wide, debating what to do. Castiel knew they expected her to use her powers on Jimmy, which would have of course been an easy task, even with a physically outmatched vessel. But something in her wanted to let Jimmy get it out of himself, thought that he deserved to get rid of his anger. (Did she in turn deserve to receive it?)

But when she felt the oxygen supply in Jeanette's body began to seriously dwindle, she raised her hand. In the past few months, as her connection to Heaven had dimmed, it had become harder for her to heal damage done to her vessels, and she supposed she should keep a better eye on this one than she had the last. "Enough," she said softly, almost to herself, and Jimmy was thrown backwards. Castiel landed on her feet and straightened, her vision clearing and heartbeat returning to normal.

Jimmy, not dissuaded by Castiel's counterblow, was coming at her again, looking wild. Castiel held him back easily, and he struggled to reach her through the telekinetic field protecting her.

"What do you think of this?" He called, not screaming now, but still frantic. "Huh? What do you have to say for their deaths, _angel_?"

"I'm sorry."

"Sorry? _Sorry_? Oh, God." He turned to Sam. "They're dead," he said, almost pleadingly. "Claire. My Amelia. Oh…" Jimmy broke off choking, but then a strange light filled his eyes. Castiel did not understand; it looked almost like… hope? "This is another hallucination," he said quietly. "Oh, God." Oddly, he grinned. "This is more demon blood shit. They're okay. Oh my God, they're okay." His shoulders slumped weakly, and Castiel in turn lowered her arm. She saw Dean and Sam exchange a wincing glance before Sam went slowly to Jimmy's side and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Sammy," Dean called. "Maybe we should--"

"No," Sam replied firmly. "That's not gonna help anything. Jimmy," he said, his voice becoming gentle. "I am so sorry. This isn't a hallucination. Listen. You're clear of the demon blood. This is real. I'm sorry."

"Why are you saying that?" Jimmy whimpered, eyes to the floor. "Leave me alone." Sam took him by both shoulders now.

"I'm saying it 'cause it's true, Jimmy. I _swear_ we'll help you get the demons that did this. I _swear_ they'll suffer for this. But it's true. Jimmy?"

But it was clear to Castiel that Jimmy had the suffering of only one being on his mind. He raised his head, eyes dripping tears, and a look came over his face that startled Castiel more than his previous attack ever could have. For a brief moment, she thought of Uriel, of his assessment of humans as no more than talking animals. In Jimmy's expression, she saw the truth of this, saw the wild, animal passions, and understood what emotions could do. Then Jimmy screamed.

"_CASTIEL_!" He lunged.

But Sam caught him up easily, holding Jimmy in his long arms as though he were no more than a child. Jimmy collapsed against him, still weakly pounding his fists, but doing no damage. Sam pulled him to the edge of a bed and pushed him down to sit; then, surprising Castiel, he stayed put as Jimmy cried, stiffly rubbing the man's back. Castiel watched for a moment, nearly transfixed. Then Jimmy began to wail-- loudly, mindlessly-- and Castiel understood that she was the last person he would want witnessing his pain. She fled.

***

Dean didn't come out of the motel room for nearly an hour. When he finally did, he looked tired, deflated. He slumped down on the bench next to Castiel and put his head in his hands.

Castiel paused before speaking. "How's Jimmy?" she asked finally.

Dean glared up, his lips pursed tightly. "Jimmy? Jimmy's peachy. 'less you count cryin' so hard he made himself sick again."

"I didn't…"

"You didn't what?"

"I didn't handle that as well as I could have."

In one smooth wave, all the anger washed out of Dean's face. "It wasn't your fault, Cas," he said quietly. "There wasn't any way you could have put it that woulda made it okay."

"I swore to protect his family. That no harm would come to them."

"Yeah. Well. A promise like that is pretty impossible to keep these days." Dean sighed. "What happened to them?"

"Demons attacked them."

"When? And why?"

Castiel thought back to the scene in the home, mother and daughter identically slaughtered, their corpses already beginning to decompose. She felt a shudder rising inside her and suppressed it with slight difficulty. She'd gone to Anna, who had filled her in on as much as they knew, which wasn't much: eight days ago, demons had attacked the Novaks seemingly without provocation. It was Anna's theory that two demon packs had gotten their signals crossed and that one had been anticipating Castiel's removal by the other a few days before it had happened, that they had gone to the Novak house expecting a human Jimmy to be there and, in their rage at being wrong, had attacked his family instead. Castiel had her doubts, though. Random acts of demon violence were spreading, and the Novaks were already known to their world. In her opinion, it had been demons being demons and killing for pleasure.

In an instant, she weighed this information and decided what to share with Dean. "Last week," she told him. "We don't know why."

Whereas Dean might have before questioned this, now he did not. Perhaps he had grown to trust Castiel more when she said she didn't have certain information, or perhaps he just didn't feel like pushing it.

"Oh, man," Dean said quietly. "Poor Jimmy." He leaned back against the bench, craning his neck to look at the stars. "He fell asleep. Or passed out or something. Sammy's sittin' with him."

"I should go before he wakes up."

"You can't avoid him forever… whether or not he likes it, you're both a part of this rag-tag organization."

Castiel dropped her eyes from Dean. "He doesn't like it."

"Can't blame him," Dean said fairly.

"No." She paused. "Dean… I'd never given much thought before to the humans whose bodies I occupied. Now I find it concerns me more than is strictly appropriate. You… asked me why I selected this body, and I told you that it was the most compatible choice." Dean waited, looking on calmly, blankly. "I didn't elaborate. I chose Jeanette from the qualified humans… because she has no family. Her parents died two years ago and she has no siblings or grandparents. She's alone."

A flicker passed over Dean's face, far too briefly for Castiel to identify the emotion. "PC possession. Huh."

"It's not a possession."

"Hey, you know, I hate to say anything longer than four letters about that Ruby bitch, but she didn't have a half-bad idea with her coma girl. Why couldn't you dredge up one of them?"

"Because it's _not_ a possession, Dean. I need to be… invited."

"And what, you don't think it's better to trash pick without asking than take a live one?"

Castiel felt her body stiffen, an unexpected physical reaction to her growing annoyance. "I have no obligation to discuss this process with you," she said coolly.

"No obligation?" Dean was growing angry again. "I've got news for you, Cas, you're about as fallen as you can get and still have your shine intact, so this whole too-holy-to-share-with-the-class thing is gettin' a bit outdated."

Castiel blinked, frozen suddenly, knowing Dean was right. She paused to think of the proper way to respond. How to explain to a human the framework of an angelic vessel? How to make him understand why permission must always be given? Even she didn't fully comprehend the vastness of the practice. "There was a time," she said finally, choosing simplicity, "when it was an honor." She fell silent then, eyes to the ground.

Dean said nothing, but after a moment Castiel felt his arm around her shoulders. Strange. Stranger still, she let him keep it there.

***

It was three days before the demons came to 'question' Jimmy. Dean and Castiel were out following a lead on Lucifer and had left the Impala, and Sam had pulled Jimmy from the motel for the first time, to get him some clothes at the local answer to an all-purpose store. They arrived just as Sam was stepping out of the car into the abandoned parking lot-- never a good sign, really-- and frantically he threw the keys into Jimmy and slammed the door shut, as though locking himself inside could be enough to keep the man safe.

It was two men, neither of whom Sam recognized or cared to get to know any better. They smiled as he glared at them, then leering through the windows of the car.

"Little Winchester goes trash picking, and finds himself an empty angel," the taller of the two, a grey-haired man, remarked. "He doesn't look worth your time to refurbish," he went on, wrinkling his nose. "Why don't you let us take him off your hands for you? Looks busted."

"Maybe that's because you bastards killed his wife and daughter," Sam replied, his voice low, really not in the mood for conversation. Both parties knew that this would just end in violence, so why delay?

"Oh, that wasn't us. Wish it had been, but we didn't have the pleasure. Now, about that matter of handing him over…."

"He doesn't know anything," Sam growled. "I swear."

"Forgive us if we don't take your word for it," the demon smirked, and the shorter man, a blonde, shrugged casually as if to remind Sam that he didn't really have a say in the matter. Sam glanced over at the car, wondering why Jimmy hadn't slid into the driver's seat and taken off like any sensible person would have done. Hell, even a crazy person might have attempted to run the demons down. But Jimmy just sat, looking blankly out at them as though they were nothing more than particularly persistent kiosk salesmen, or members of a religious outreach program.

"Leave now, or I'll kill you both," Sam threatened, trying to sound as confident about it as he would have been a few months back. But the demons weren't buying it, weren't even pretending.

"Word on the street is you've kicked your little habit," the shorter one piped up. His voice was surprisingly deep. "So I'm not so sure how well you're placing your confidence. Although," he added, "we could always make it a fair fight."

And then he did what Sam had been dreading a demon would do in every battle since his second detox: he pulled a little knife from his jacket pocket and slit a neat, thin line across his own palm.

The demons were knocked back so quickly that by the time blood was oozing from the wound, they were already on the ground. Sam stood over them, hands extended, his heart racing, and pushed all his mental might at them until he thought his head would explode. And then something did explode: smoke, oily like a car fire's, shot from the grey-haired demon's mouth. _Damn it_-- technically that was a good thing, but Sam had been aiming to kill. _Weakling_, a dim, near-extinguished part of his mind mocked. Of course, there was an easy way; just one taste, one quick lick of the demon blood and he would be able to kill anyone he pleased….

_No!_, he screamed at himself, but he wanted it, wanted the blood like a man lost in a desert wanted water, wanted it like a freezing man wanted arms around him-- like a lonely man wanted arms around him-- and it would have been so warm, so soothing, would have made him feel so safe and powerful and in control and….

And then suddenly the blonde demon was dead. The burst of anger-- not at the demons, but at himself-- had been enough to do the job.

Sam collapsed onto all fours, supporting himself on knees and forearms, waiting with vague curiosity to find out whether or not he'd puke from the strain. His stomach was jumping rhythmically, as though the pavement underneath him in fact were a well-disguised boat sailing choppy waters, and his mouth was wet, with a bitter taste at the back of it. He heaved twice but nothing came up; finally the feeling receded enough for him to push himself to his feet, leaning wearily on the Impala.

Inside, Jimmy was still staring, his face expressionless. Sam noticed, with an anger beginning in his stomach far more intense than the nausea, that he hadn't ever locked the doors.

Maybe the grey-haired demon had been right: maybe Jimmy wasn't anything more than a sofa by the side of the road. Sam tried his best to be sympathetic, but exasperation had taken over beyond his control. When he'd lost his Jessica-- and Dad, and Dean-- Sam had used his grief as fuel for his fire. Sure, he'd been a wreck, but at least he'd been off his ass doing something. Killing shit.

Still queasy, head aching from the strain of the fight, Sam stared into the car at Jimmy with absolutely no idea what to make of him or what to do with him: whether or not he was worth the muscle to lift into the truckbed, or worth the gas to drive him home.

***

The next weeks passed slowly. Dean and Castiel went out early every morning and returned-- on most days-- only to switch out their weapons and let Dean catch a few hours of sleep. On days that they didn't, Dean called to update Sam over the phone. Sam was uneasy and yeah, somewhat resentful of the rhythm they'd fallen into; he was unused to staying back, watching Dean go off to fight with someone who wasn't him.

Somehow Sam had earned the honor of spending most of his time back in the motel, teaching Jimmy basic self-defense and exorcism skills. But training the man, who before his time with Castiel had never so much as belonged to a gym, proved to be nowhere near as frustrating as simply putting up with him. After initially hearing the news of his family's death, Jimmy had stopped crying, stopped emoting whatsoever, and stayed quiet most of the time. 'Cabin fever' was beginning to take on a whole new meaning for Sam as he spent day after day inside with the former vessel. He tried not to think of this as punishment for what he'd done, this sudden lack of involvement, of trust, but honestly he didn't know what to make of his new baby-sitting duties. As much as he cared about what happened to Jimmy, and knew that Jimmy trusted him much more than he trusted Dean, Sam just wanted to smite one demon asshole. Just one. Seriously. No one even returned for Jimmy to give him the opportunity in that way; apparently the demons considered him useless as well.

But gradually Sam began to soften up towards the man, especially when it became clear that Jimmy was taking his hunter's training seriously, if nothing else. He never complained when Sam pushed him, even though he routinely went beyond what must have been his physical comfort zone. In the evenings, while Sam watched TV, he had his nose in a book, studying Latin pronunciation. And, Sam had to admit, Jimmy simply couldn't be held to Winchester standards of sucking it up and soldiering on. He'd probably had a quiet, normal upbringing during which no one had ever taught him to channel his grief into killing monsters. Most men in his situation probably wouldn't even get out of bed at all, so Sam had to give him some credit. And besides, something else was pressing on Sam's mind…

Because someone who seemed entirely okay with the new arrangement was Dean. He and Castiel roamed about together, sometimes driving, sometimes flying, or whatever the angels actually called it. They tracked leads on Lucifer, always coming back with nothing, and meanwhile teamed up with other hunters and angels to destroy hives of demons that sprung up with greater frequency now. And they brought word, via Anna, of more angels being forced from their vessels via demon blood poisoning. She herself had been attacked, although as she actually controlled her own body, she hadn't been forced out, instead experiencing the symptoms of the blood herself. Of course other angels had not been so lucky, and when Sam wondered to himself what was keeping Castiel's new vessel from being attacked like his last, he felt the answer like a stone in his gut: absolutely nothing.

But through all this, Dean seemed more eager than he ever had before. More motivated. Occasionally even more optimistic. Sam had a theory. He really, really didn't like it, to the point where he wouldn't even let it to the front of his mind. But it lurked, somewhere in the shadows at the back of his skull, strange and sad and dangerous. One day there had been a lull in work for long enough that Dean had time for a full night's sleep and then some, and he had _gone swimming_. In the motel pool. Of the thousands of motels with pools that they had stayed at over the years, Sam could not remember either of them ever taking advantage of the facility. But here one morning Dean had appeared out of the bathroom, clad in swimtrunks that Sam didn't even remember him owning, announced his intentions and strolled out the door into the decidedly-cold-for-swimming spring day.

Other things too: he was eating less. Humming more. Once while flipping through channels he had stopped on a movie that wasn't a chick flick-- thank God it wasn't that bad-- but certainly wasn't an action movie either.

Weird stuff. Stupid stuff. Stuff that seemed a little young, a little out of place for a grown man, especially a hunter.

Coupled with his newly intensified companionship with the newly female Castiel, Sam had a bad feeling about what all this high school behavior might mean. But could Dean really have… a crush? On an _angel_?


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer, timeframe, summary: see first chapter.

_In the Wake of Angels: Part VI_

Jeanette Murphy was used to doing things out of necessity. When her parents had died, she had wanted to do nothing more than curl up and die herself, but she pulled herself out of bed to school and work, knowing that now it was entirely up to her to create a life for herself. Now she was learning to be the vessel of an angel, because she didn't really have any other choice.

It was difficult, but not impossible; nothing was impossible, not anymore. She had slowly, with determination, taught herself to close her inner eyes, block out the images from the outside world and doze, lost in a sort of meditation. The movements of her body affected her no more than the movements of a car affected a child sleeping inside it. It was in this fashion that she passed the majority of her time, unaware, unconnected, half-alive.

Occasionally, though, the car ride would get too bumpy-- Castiel's movements of her body too violent, too terrifying-- and she couldn't sleep; the best she could do was lose herself in memories and try to ignore what was happening, although this was the closest thing to impossible that she could imagine. Castiel _fought demons_, she soon learned-- occupied her body like a soldier in a tank, controlling her arms to punch, legs to run, voice to spew Latin gibberish. During these battles she would crawl into the lowest, dimmest corner of her mind that she could find and pull childhood memories over her like blankets-- the sounds of the zoo, the taste of cookie dough, the feeling of wet sand. And Jeanette would wait.

It wasn't all terrible, though. Sometimes the battles would pause, the frantic rush of movement would stop, and she talked to Castiel then, in a fashion-- sharing information with it, asking it questions, making herself less alone. She opened her eyes and watch Castiel's life like a 4D movie, seeing it all in perfect image quality and actually smelling the smells and feeling the sensations, however distantly. It was… interesting. She learned the characters: there was Jimmy, a darkly handsome man who had been Castiel's vessel before her. Jeanette knew that she should be afraid of him-- of what she herself would likely become-- but she couldn't shake the utter fascination she felt with him. He'd lost his family, she knew; informing him had been one of the first actions that Castiel had taken while in her body. Since then, he'd milled around, running menial trips for supplies and learning to fight, but mostly just staring into space. Not that Jeanette could blame him. More than anything she wanted to speak to him, hear his thoughts on how to cope with being the vessel of an angel. Maybe give him hers on how to cope with being alone.

After Jimmy, there was Anna, the beautiful redhead, a fellow angel with whom Castiel would often meet. Jeanette couldn't follow the politics of the situation very well, but she did understand that both Anna and Castiel were sort of outcasts, rebels when it came to angels in general. But what intrigued her more about Anna was that she seemed to own and not rent when it came to the body department-- apparently, although who the hell knew how this worked-- she'd done a stint as a human herself. Often, though, Jeanette didn't hear much from Anna, because often a trip to see Anna meant a battle was coming soon.

And then, there were the Winchester brothers. Leaders of the human resistance, or something like that. From what she could piece together, they had been raised to fight demons-- and monsters and ghosts and the like-- and now had been recruited by the angels to help with what seemed to be some sort of final battle. Sam, the younger brother, stood more than a foot above Jeanette. He was quiet and moody, recently having detoxed from an addiction to, of all things, demon blood. Jeanette had the impression that he'd badly, badly screwed up a while back and was still trying to patch up his relationships with Castiel and especially his brother, Dean. Slowly, though, it seemed to be working. Dean just seemed happy to have his brother beside him, no matter how temperamental Sam could be.

_Dean_. Now, Dean Winchester was her favorite in the character line-up, and the one with whom Castiel interacted most frequently. Solid and gruff but unexpectedly sweet, he'd died, been sent to Hell, and then pulled out to assist in the angels' master plan. But his strange backstory wasn't what made him interesting to Jeanette; it was the strange things that seemed to happen inside of her when he was around.

From a conversation between Castiel and Anna, Jeanette had been able to glean this much about angels: strictly speaking, they weren't supposed to feel anything. It was looked down on as a human weakness, and of all the angels she'd seen-- there had been at least a dozen so far-- Anna seemed to be the only one comfortable experiencing emotion.

But Castiel did too-- it might not have been comfortable with it, but there was no denying it. The first time it had happened, it had surprised Jeanette, because in a sort of dreamlike way she had felt Castiel's emotions in her own heart as well. They were childlike, vague but strong. Castiel was scared, confused, angry. It had been abandoned, betrayed and hurt. But every once in a while, a surge of serenity and warmth would run through Jeanette from Castiel, and eventually she learned that Dean was invariably the source of it. She wasn't sure how these things worked with angels-- were they friends? Were they in love? Or was it something else, something more profound that she couldn't understand? Whatever it was, she knew that it was strong. Dean Winchester was the only being alive who gave Castiel any measure of comfort or hope.

***

Dean ducked to avoid the smoke that erupted from the demon's mouth as Castiel finished the exorcism. Unsupported, the formerly possessed body fell to the floor. He leaned over to check for a pulse-- found none, as he'd been fearing-- and then righted himself again. He threw a glance at Castiel, who in turn was looking down at the corpse. More and more often now, humans possessed by demons were either dying during exorcism, or from wounds sustained long ago that had been patched temporarily by the demon. Dean wondered if they still felt the pain of the wound; wondered if they could feel anything beyond the pain of a demonic possession.

"Hey, Cas," he said as they traipsed across the field and back to the car. It was, naturally, the middle of the night. Two demons had set up camp in a cabin at the foot of a mountain, at which Dean and Castiel had set up an ambush as they waiting frickin' _forever_ for the demons to return. They were about an hour north of the motel that Dean had begun to think of as 'base', following a Lucifer lead from Bobby that had turned out to be useless. As usual, the demons thought nothing of dying in order to keep their master's secret.

"Dean?"

"Why didn't Jimmy die when you left him? I mean, last time he was just himself, he was shot. Doesn't work the same with angels?"

"It does." They reached the Impala and climbed in; Cas, Dean noticed, was getting more used to being in it, sitting back in the seat rather than bolt upright. "I had a moment outside Jimmy's body before I was thrown completely back to Heaven. I spent the last of my energy to heal him completely."

"Why?" Dean turned the key and the engine roared to life; a brief wave of comfort washed over Dean at the familiar sound. He stepped on the gas.

Cas was gazing out the window at the now-moving scenery, her hands on her knees. "He was a good vessel. A very faithful man."

"Does that make it easier to be inside someone?"

"It does. Especially after he sacrificed himself for his daughter… love and devotion like that make it easier to take on a physical form. It's one of the reasons only certain individuals can act as vessels."

"Does Jeanette have it?"

Cas turned away from the window. "She does, but not nearly as much."

"Do you think you could go back in Jimmy?"

At this, Cas sighed. "Demon blood not only taints the body, Dean, it taints the soul. Jimmy is still a good man and he still has Heaven's gratitude. But now that he's been marked like that… I don't think I could be inside with him. Even if his body itself were clean."

"No such thing as absolute forgiveness, then?" Dean mused, slightly surprised at how aggravating he found that. Castiel said nothing. "I need gas," Dean announced, and unceremoniously pulled into the exit lane and guided the Impala to the first station he saw.

Cas, still not speaking, habitually climbed out of the car behind him and stood guard while he placed the nozzle. Dean looked over at her, her borrowed skin sallow in the artificial gas station lights, and leaned back against the Impala's side with a sudden tiredness. He couldn't get over how small she was, how young she looked; couldn't help but think with sadness of both the twenty-something girl who owned the body and the timeless angel who inhabited it now. He wanted, illogicially and suddenly, to see Castiel-- see Castiel for who she, or he, or it really was. Even if his eyes burned out. Even if it killed him. He just wanted to make contact with the angel with nothing in between them, no hellfire or eyelids or borrowed meatsuits. There was a loneliness about Cas that Dean wanted, unexplainably, to fix. Why was that? He'd paid his debt to the angel and then some. What was this loyalty, then?

"You okay, Cas?" Dean called, his soft voice perfectly clear in the empty lot. Castiel turned to him and looked him straight in the eye; she said nothing, and yet Dean felt like hellhooks were grabbing at his soul again. Or maybe angel hands. He went around to the passenger side and stood beside her, wondering what to do now.

For a moment, neither spoke. Then: "I'm experiencing almost every emotion I can think of now," she said quietly, and for a minute Dean's heart raced, thinking she meant at this very moment, which would have been funny because all of a sudden he himself was sad and excited and desperate and dizzy….

"I feel like I fall a little more each day," she continued, and Dean got it then. His heart began to slow once more. Castiel leaned back against the car. "I'm not thinking straight and it's affecting the hunt for Lucifer. Dean, it's costing lives."

"Cas," Dean murmured, stalling, because no helpful words came to mind. "You can't blame yourself for how the hunt's going, because it's got nothing to do with that. And you can't blame yourself for feeling more than you used to. Hell, these're emotional times. You think I always used to be such a crybaby?"

"But it's not just… sadness. Or fear. I'm feeling good things too. Excitement. Exhilaration." Was it Dean's imagination, or did her eyes flicker far away for just a moment before she finished, softly: "camaraderie."

Dean heard a quiet click; the pump had stopped. Neither of them moved. "Jeanette's encouraging it, too. She's much more aware than Jimmy ever was. We… communicate. Somewhat. She helps me put names to what I'm experiencing."

"The ABC's of feelings," Dean remarked dryly, trying to remember when he learned about sad and happy and all of that. He couldn't imagine what it was like to have that happen inorganically. "You know, Cas, I could always help you too. If you wanted. I mean… we have enough time for talking now." He put a hand on her shoulder and had the sudden, irrational urge to work his fingers up under the hem of the short sleeve-- to touch her skin, to get closer to her. He didn't. But when she sighed, so slowly and lightly that he was barely sure he heard it, he put his other hand up too, touching her bicep exactly where, so long ago, she'd burned her mark in his. He wondered randomly how Jeanette's small, thin-fingered hand would compare to the still-livid handprint raised there.

"I'm confused," Castiel said softly. And Dean nodded.

"Same here."

And then, he kissed her.

Castiel didn't react for a moment until, unbeknownst to Dean, Jeanette whispered in the angel's proverbial ear: _kiss him back_. Then, still fumbling, she put her hands up to Dean's arms, touching lightly, doing nothing with her mouth but not protesting the movements of his.

Dean was the one to pull away, breathing shallow, heart pounding. Inches from his face, Castiel's blue-green eyes were wide and glassy but the tiniest hint of a bewildered smile was beginning on her lips.

"Hey!" A voice shouted suddenly. A portly, balding blonde man had come storming out of the quick-mart and onto the lot, one hand on a hip, the other waving. "You two gonna pay or stand there and make out all night?" He sounded angry, but Dean had to laugh, because to an outside observer he and Cas looked just like a boy and a girl, kissing in a gas station in the middle of the night. If only it were that simple.


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer, timeframe, summary: see first chapter.

_In the Wake of Angels: Part VII_

The drive back to the motel was unexpectedly comfortable. When they'd first gotten in, Cas had turned to him and opened her mouth as though about to say something, but hadn't complained when Dean shook his head no and told her, "we'll talk later." The silence they'd fallen into had been more companionable than awkward, and was broken by the stereo and Dean's occasional explanation of a certain song. Cas seemed content just to listen, and Dean was happy not to question anything at the moment-- to block off his mind from what had just occurred, set up a temporary but airtight embargo against it. For now, he was just… _warm_, just warm and comfortable, safe inside the Impala while outside it was beginning to drizzle.

Sam and Jimmy were in bed when they got back-- which made sense, seeing as it was almost 4 in the morning. But Dean could tell that Sam wasn't asleep. He turned to Cas but before he could say anything she cut him off. "I need to talk to Anna," she said simply, and was gone, into the rain.

Dean sighed, a little of that warm, safe feeling fading now, and turned back to Sam, who had sat up in bed.

"How'd it go?"

"Bad," Dean replied. "No leads. Nothing. Just two less bastard demons roaming the earth."

"That's something," Sam said quietly.

"Yeah," Dean agreed, but didn't really think so.

"What's with Cas?"

"Dunno."

They lapsed into silence, which Dean found markedly less comfortable than that which he'd shared with Cas in the car just minutes ago. Finally, Sam broke it. "Dean, we need to talk."

Dean's stomach clenched up uncomfortably. "'bout what?"

"About Jimmy."

Although he knew that logically Jimmy was a heavier topic than any sort of boy-girl or boy-angel drama, Dean felt himself relax at Sam's answer.

"And then we can talk about your crush on Castiel," Sam added.

_Shit_.

"What about Jimmy?" Dean asked, hoping to gloss over that last sentence entirely. Sam stood, stretched, and went to the mini-fridge in the corner. He pulled out a bottle of water and opened it, sucking at the mouth nervously.

"I'm worried about him."

"How's he doing?"

"You'd know if you were ever here," Sam snapped, then shook his head. "Sorry. Sorry." He winced. "He's bad, Dean. Really bad." He paused. "I think he gonna kill himself."

Kiss completely forgotten, Dean shot up from his seat on the foot of Sam's bed. "What makes you think that?"

"Just… the way he's been acting. Things he's been saying, not saying. I just don't think he wants to be here anymore, Dean. And I can't say I blame him."

"I know," Dean said, growing panicked, "I know. His family just died, Sam. His family just died. How do you expect him to be acting?" And yet, something about the concept was pulling at his insides, whispering maliciously like only a truth could.

"There's more than that," Sam continued. He made his way back to the bed but didn't sit down; Dean did, though stiffly. "I think he took a gun."

"What?"

"You know I've been training him. Trying to teach him basic defense skills and stuff. And then tonight when I went to reload all the guns we had here, I came up one short. Checked myself twice."

"Which one?"

"Um, the oldest forty-five."

Dean's stomach unclenched, though only slightly. He reached down to his ankle holster and pulled the aforementioned weapon out, holding it up for Sam's inspection. Sam grabbed it and stared at it like a man seeing a miracle.

"I didn't know you had this one."

"Last time I checked, I didn't have to register my shit with you," Dean told him, but without any hint of anger.

Sam was breathing just a little too heavily, holding the hand with the water bottle in it to his forehead. "That's one more than you usually take."

"Times is rough, pard-ner," Dean drawled. Sam didn't seem to find it funny.

"I like to know where they all are, okay, Dean? At all times."

"Jeez, all right, Serge." As it seemed that one crisis had been well averted for the night, Dean decided to reward himself and went to the fridge, grabbing not a water but a beer and popping it open.

"I'm still worried about him," Sam remarked, facing away from Dean, towards Jimmy, sleeping fitfully in the far bed.

"He needs time, Sammy. We both know what it's like to lose people that close to you. There's nothing we can do to fix this."

"We can let him out of this dump," Sam said quietly. Dean said nothing, waiting for him to go on. "He's getting good, Dean. Good enough to come with us. I think it would be better for him than sitting around here all day. Travis told me about a group of demons about two hours from here, all very low level. I think we should go, and take him with us."

"Hold up there, Sammy," Dean warned, not ungently. "How old were you the first time you fought a demon? I was twenty, so you had to be sixteen. They were the one thing Dad didn't let us near when we were kids, and for good reason. Even with a decade under our belts, they still kick our asses. And you want to take Jimmy?"

"Okay then," Sam agreed, obviously prepared for this response. "Not demons. There's a nest of vampires close to here. Bobby thinks they're running errands for the demons. Finding them new bodies." In the months since Lucifer had risen, all manner of unsavory creatures had allied themselves with the armies of Hell, until it now seemed that any individual threat they might face down was instead just a node in a vast network of badness. "How about we go after them?"

Dean still didn't like the sound of it. "You're gonna have to try a little harder than that, Sammy," he growled.

"Okay." Sam looked him straight in the eye. "Pretend it's three years ago. Pretend Dad just died. Now pretend that you've been locked up in a crappy old motel room and told that the most you're allowed to do is take a supervised walk to the supermarket. You can't _do_ anything."

Sam had pressed the exact button that Dean had known he would, and Dean had also reacted as expected. Because of this, he didn't know why he'd even made Sam say it in the first place.

"Okay," Dean relented. "Vamps it is, then."

Sam nodded, briefly assuaged. But then the talker kept right on talking. "Now. Cas. You have a crush on her."

"I know," Dean replied.

"Don't prete-- what?" Nothing derailed Sam's word train like agreeing with him right from the start. "You know?"

"Well, yeah." He couldn't meet Sam's eyes, instead concentrating at the generic painting on the motel wall. "I just kissed her."

"You just-- _what_?"

"In the morning. Please." He fell into the empty bed, leaving Sam standing with his jaw still dropped. "You'll catch flies, Sammy," Dean said into his pillow, and then he was out like a light.

***

Castiel stood in the middle of a field in northern Michigan, where she and Anna had been coordinating their meetings for the past few months. It was taxing to both of them to travel, and life with the Winchesters took Castiel all across the country, but they'd both agreed that it was easier to have one set rendezvous spot now that they had a diminishing mental connection, and were less able to find each other. It was the time of night between moonset and sunrise, but even with human eyes, Castiel was able to appreciate the bounty of stars that the otherwise pitch-black night offered. She stared up at them and breathed, the air pleasantly cold, and waited, praying Anna would hear her calls and appear.

It took a while, but eventually she did, looking rumpled and wary. "What's wrong, Cas?" she asked immediately.

Suddenly, the feeling that Jeanette had helped name 'guilt'-- a relatively new one-- rushed at Castiel, knocking her words away momentarily. How could she take up Anna's time with something so… trivial? "I need your advice, sister," she said quietly. Anna nodded impatiently for her to continue. "It's not a matter involving Lucifer," Castiel admitted. "In fact, it's not a matter involving anything of that nature."

"Just tell me."

"You know," Castiel said slowly, "that I've been experiencing more and more emotions as the days go on. I've told you that."

"Yes."

"I've come across a new one."

"Do you know what it is?"

Castiel paused; she did, but she prepared herself for the word to feel strange on her borrowed lips. "Attraction."

At this, Anna's eyes lit up. All traces of impatience vanished and she actually smiled. "My God, I never thought I'd live to see it. When did it happen, then? From what? Someone on TV?"

Castiel cocked her head, confused. "No, real life."

"Oh," Anna said, and was beginning to say something else that was cut off when Castiel said slowly, clearly, "Dean Winchester."

Silence fell over the clearing, and Castiel remembered-- with further guilt-- Anna's own romantic experiences with Dean. "Well, I can't say I blame you," Anna said at last. "He is one good-looking bastard."

Castiel blinked, still perplexed. Despite everything else she had come to learn about humans, and about feeling, the concept of physical attraction still evaded her. She couldn't care less about what Dean looked like, and she told Anna that. Anna just smirked. "So, what happened?"

"We kissed."

"And?"

"And," Castiel said. "I don't know what to do."

Anna shook her head. "I mean, you kissed, and…?"

At last Castiel understood her meaning. "There wasn't anything else physical involved," she said curtly.

"Oh."

Castiel knew that Anna was hurt, and she regretted it; nevertheless, she needed advice, so she pressed on. "I'm confused, Anna," she said quietly. "Nothing before has been like this."

"Well, talk to me," Anna replied, seeming to swallow her discomfort and focus all her energy on her friend, which Castiel appreciated. "Tell me what you're feeling. How do you feel about him?"

Castiel paused before replying, again struggling to put by-now-familiar sensations into the clumsy medium of words. "I've always been concerned with Dean," she began slowly. "And since I was… capable of … caring, I suppose, I've cared for him." Anna nodded encouragingly. "I consider him a friend. But it's not like you, or Sam… I feel more for him than friendship. When I'm with him I feel comforted. Like it used to be, before all of this started. I want… to be near him. You know, I'm still not used to… physical contact. But I don't mind it when he touches me." Castiel felt her mouth pull, and realized that she was smiling. "I want to… _hold_ him."

She looked up at Anna, who was shaking her head and grinning. Castiel saw nothing funny about it and yet, her smile widened too. "Cas," Anna said, laughingly. "Oh, Castiel. You are too cute."

"What do I do?"

"Hold him, if you want to. Do whatever feels right."

"Our Father…"

"Our Father," Anna interrupted, "started _everything_ because of love. Everything good that's ever happened has happened because of it. And any angel who says otherwise is speaking out their own _ass_, not from our Father. He wants us to be _happy_, Cas. So be happy."

Trying to absorb this, Castiel took a few steps away. The sun was finally beginning to rise, obscuring the stars with a thickening film of orange-pink. "Anna," she said, after a moment, "I never said anything about _love_."

But Anna was gone.

Castiel wandered, watching the sun come up, thinking of Dean, her mind working sluggishly. She thought of how he made her feel: comfortable, exhilarated, weak, strong. She thought of love, which had been the original-- and for a time, sole-- emotion of angels. It was something they'd lost sight of in the past few millennia, it seemed. And despite the fact that she wanted to take Anna's comfort, she still wasn't sure how Father would feel about this. Finding love again, this was undeniably a good thing, but finding it because of a human? Was that acceptable? Even allowable?

Jeanette spoke up eventually, reiterating to her what Anna had said, that love was never anything to look down upon. Though Castiel was tempted to ask what authority the human thought she had on such matters, she kept quiet, listening again, hoping her host could convince her of the statement's truth despite the fact that Anna had failed to. Then she listened on as Jeanette told about the people she had loved in her life: her parents, her friends, and a young man who, in the images Jeanette showed her, reminded Castiel unaccountably of Dean. It was a ridiculous notion to compare them-- a college boy and a demon hunter, but Jeanette just smiled inside her head. _Every man reminds you of him_, she remarked pensively. _Every song is about him._

_I'm not sure about music_, Castiel told her. _But it does seem that the entirety of my existence by now involves Dean Winchester in some way._ Jeanette laughed at that, about to say more, but retreated without argument when Castiel asked her politely for time to think in peace. Then, alone, her vessel's mind dozing, she wandered until the sun was fully above the line of trees before realizing that she should return to the motel.

In all those hours, she still came to no conclusions.

***

Morning came, and Sam felt like a Scoutmaster preparing for a camping trip as he loaded the Impala and quizzed Jimmy for his first real supernatural encounter… well, his first one during which he'd be completely in control of his own body. Castiel was gone and Dean sulked around the motel room-- Sam was quite certain that the two phenomena were related-- and was less than helpful when it came to preparing for the journey and the fight. What the brothers had discussed last night-- the second thing-- was never far from Sam's mind, but he knew that analyzing it further would have to wait until after the fight. Dean, he realized, must have known this as well when he'd initially postponed the conversation last night.

Sam wanted to arrive at the address Bobby had given them around eleven or so, to make absolutely sure that the vampires would have already gone to sleep for the day. This meant, by his (Mapquest's) calculations, leaving around ten. He'd packed guns for all of them, the bullets painted with a thin coating of dead man's blood, as well as machetes for him, Dean and Castiel, whose blades had been treated as well. For Jimmy, he supplied a smaller knife; he didn't expect, or want, the man to attempt a killing blow on his first hunt. In fact, he'd told Jimmy how to identify the leader of the nest upon entrance and ordered him to stay away from him no matter what.

When it was quarter of ten and there was still no sign of Castiel, Sam knew he had to ask. "Do you have any idea what time Cas is getting back?"

"Nope."

Sam sighed. "We're gonna have to leave without her soon."

"Leave a note with the address. She can meet us there."

Sam didn't like it, but ten came and went, and he knew that was exactly what they would end up doing. Besides, he argued to himself, there had been a time before Cas, before Heaven and Hell and all related paraphernalia, when the Winchester brothers worked alone. They were still more than capable of it. It just felt… odd, was all.

But when they were a few miles from the reported location of the nest-- an old boathouse on a nearby river-- Dean stopped the car and pulled over to the shoulder. Absorbed by his laptop, not seeing what his brother had seen, Sam was slightly surprised when the back door opened and Castiel slid in, seating herself next to her former vessel.

"Glad you could make it," Sam remarked. Castiel smirked, but said nothing. Dean guided the car back onto the highway, staring pointedly out the windshield. Lovely: now Sam felt like a high school dance chaperone. "How do you kill a vampire, Jimmy?" he asked, desperate for something to say.

"You cut off their head," Jimmy answered, his voice hollow.

"But are you gonna be doing any of that?"

"No."

They parked a safe distance away, marching on foot to the boathouse, lugging their weapons with them. "There are four," Castiel said quietly as they approached, and Sam didn't question how he was able to sense that. "Two pairs of mates. The older female is the leader." Sam glanced and Jimmy, who nodded, understanding.

"Okay," Sam said, "we're gonna give it a shot interrogating them, but I'm pretty sure they won't know anything. But according to Bobby, they've been snatching humans like crazy. So in the end, we aim to kill either way. Ready?" They had reached the building. Sam turned once more to look at Jimmy, and found him already sweating, his skin a sickly green.

"Ready," he replied.

Dean opened the door.


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer, timeframe, summary: see first chapter.

_In the Wake of Angels: Part VIII_

In the dim, dusty light that filtered through from the ceiling, Sam counted the four vampires that Castiel had sensed. He easily identified the leader, a buxom thirty-something woman with dark red hair; the other female was visibly younger, a teenager when turned, looking more childish still with a petite frame and a mop of unkempt strawberry blonde hair. The two men were more similar; both dark-haired and muscled, carrying the sort of handsome anonymity of soap opera stars. Only by their clothes-- one shirt black, one green-- would they be easily distinguished in battle. Good thing the Winchesters and company were there to kill everything, then.

The four of them lay in hammocks across the room, unmoving. Sam scanned for any live humans that may have been waiting for delivery to demons, but found none. Well, there was a touch of luck, anyway. He waved for the rest of them to follow him, and made his way slowly into the room.

"Don't think I don't see you just 'cause I ain't gettin' up, sug," the redhead drawled without opening her eyes, making Sam's stomach jump briefly. "Long night, you know."

"Long night working for the demons?" Dean guessed.

"Freelancing," she corrected, standing and stretching. "Oh my. Our little nest is worthy of Heaven's attention, is it now? Or is our feathered friend here a… freelancer too?"

"Tell us about your connections," Sam demanded, pulling the leader's attention back from Castiel. He desperately wanted to look over his shoulder and check on how Jimmy was doing, but knew better than to take his eyes off the woman for even a moment. Although he'd known all along, Sam was suddenly acutely aware that the three vampires still in bed were wide awake. "What demons do you work for? How high up?"

"Just a bunch of black-eyed Susans," she replied lazily. "Honestly, we don't ask questions."

"Why do it?" Dean asked then. "What's in it for you?"

"Alliances are good to have these days," she answered, crossing her arms but still looking relaxed. "Especially with so few of our own kind left."

"I thought you were just freelancers," Sam reminded her coldly. She shrugged.

"Well, we also get to drain all the bodies. Demons don't care if they're on their last legs or not. So they do the recon, find the vulnerable humans for us, and we do the footwork and still get all the blood we want. Suits us."

Growing bored, Sam pulled his gun and cocked it. "The bullets are covered with dead man's blood," he warned. "Tell us about the demons you work for and we'll leave you alone. Don't make us get it out of you the hard way."

The redhead smiled. "You won't leave us alone. It doesn't matter if we know anything. I think we're just practice for Hunter Junior back there, am I right? Doesn't matter what I tell you. You'll kill us anyway."

Sam kept his face clear but winced internally; he hadn't anticipated her getting an accurate read on the situation. Not that she was wrong. But the fact that they knew the Winchesters were only there to kill them meant they would only be out to kill in return. Still, he wanted to delay a moment longer and give them all-- especially Jimmy-- time to study the room and prepare for the inevitable fight.

"I don't want to hurt you any more than I have to," Sam said tightly. "But I will shoot you right now and keep shooting until you tell me who you work for."

She shrugged.

"Dead man's blood," he reminded her. "Please. Tell me about the demons."

She smiled. "You don't scare me, honey. Death neither. Won't be much difference 'tween here and Hell, soon."

Sam fired. The bullet hit her shoulder and went clear through. A moment later she faltered, her eyelids lowering, but then she shook it off and stood tall. "Gotta lay the poison on a little thicker, sugar," she chuckled.

"How 'bout I just lay on the bullets instead?"

That was Dean, of course, and moments later bullets were ripping through the air towards the leader. Well, hopefully everyone had gotten a lay of the land, because it was go time.

In an instant, the other three vampires had jumped to their feet and come running. The leader stayed back, making it a fair fight, numerically speaking, with Jimmy not really counting either.

Sam found himself facing off against the green-shirted man, who came at him with the force of a small truck, and so barreled right past him when Sam side-stepped. That moment's distraction was enough for Sam to see that Castiel was fighting the other man and Dean was circling the blonde girl. Damn… it was also enough to see that, in flying past him, Green Shirt had ended up right next to Jimmy.

But Jimmy, reacting quickly despite-- or perhaps because of-- his fear, pulled his gun and fired. The bullet managed to hit the vampire in the leg, and he hissed in pain and fell to one knee. Sam took the opportunity to come up behind him and press his blade against Green's throat.

"Tell me about the demons you work for," Sam growled. "Or so help me you'll be Jimmy's first lesson."

Green's body shook with laughter in Sam's arms, though he held his neck still, aware of the blood on the blade. "I was always excellent for making an example of."

Sam pressed the blade closer, letting a little of the poison bite through. "Class clown, huh? Well, this isn't a joke."

"Then why am I laughing?"

Sam pressed it closer.

"Go ahead," Green told him. "Kill me. Honestly. Marie doesn't see it but they're gonna kill us anyway. So go ahead, don't give them the pleasure."

"Believe me, I won't," Sam promised, but something wasn't sitting well with him. Why was Green giving up so easily? It wasn't like a vampire… it wasn't like anything. He was up to something. And by the time Sam saw it, he feared it was too late.

Bantering with Sam had given Green time to pull a syringe and hold it on Jimmy, to his leg. It was a small thing, strangely innocuous given the circumstances, but Sam and knew what was in it. Green felt him tense, knew he'd noticed.

"Oh yeah," he chuckled. "Vampire blood. Hey kid--"

And then Sam pulled back as hard as he could and sliced Green's head clear off. Had the vampire been counting on Sam's hesitation, his squeamishness? If so, it was the last mistake he'd ever made.

Jimmy jumped back as the head rolled towards him, aiming his gun at it instinctively. Panting, sticky with blood, Sam pushed himself to his feet. "Good work, Jimmy," he said, nodding. "That was really good." Jimmy nodded back at him.

"I'm getting really tired of juggling all these different blood types," he remarked, his voice somewhat high-- the first sort of inflection it had carried in weeks.

Sam tossed him a grin and then turned back to the center of the room. "Stay back," he called as he did so. "That's enough for now."

Still, Marie stood in the middle, watching with amusement on her face as Dean and Castiel faced off against her remaining nestmates. It answered the question that Sam had been wondering, though he knew it was ultimately irrelevant, of who was whose mate; clearly it was Green and the blonde, and Marie and the other man; had Marie been with Green, Sam was sure she would have reacted to his death.

As it was, her mate seemed fine at the moment; he'd been poisoned, Sam saw, by a number of bullet holes through his gut, but because he was sickened he was being ignored by Dean and Cas. They were concentrating instead on the young blonde; Castiel was holding her down with her angel mojo and Dean was cutting on her slowly, poisoning her bit by bit, demanding to know about her employers. Sam's heart ached at the look on Dean's face; torture still brought back terrible memories for him, although he'd had to suck it up more than once over the past few months. Still, Sam wished Cas would take the knife from him.

"Please," Black Shirt called from the floor, squirming in obvious pain at both the poison blood in his system and the treatment of his sister vampire. "We don't… know… anything."

"Tell me," Dean growled, and cut a neat line across Blonde's right forearm. "Who do you work for?"

But as Sam watched, Castiel pieced something together. She drew her own blade and pressed it up against Blonde's throat. Then she turned to Black and said, her voice cold and clear, "Who do you work for?"

"Please," he murmured. Cas pressed the blade down. Black twitched; maybe Sam had gotten the pairings wrong. Maybe Green was Marie's mate and she was just a heartless bitch.

"Who do you work for?" Castiel repeated.

"Okay, okay!" Black pulled himself into a crouch and slowly stood, hands raised. "We don't know names, I swear. We don't know how to contact them. Once a week, we meet them at a pub. It's about ten minutes from here. Kavanaugh's. They tell us a few people they want and we get them and bring them the next week."

"When do you meet?"

"Wednesday nights. Seven o'clock. That's all I know, I swear," he added.

"Are you holding any humans now?"

"No."

"Are you positive?" The blade dug a little deeper.

"Yes!" Black cried.

"Thank you," Castiel said. And then she pressed her blade down and Blonde's head went tumbling to the floor.

"No!" Black howled. Though still off-balance, he lunged at Cas, knocking her on her back, pinning her to the floor. There was a nauseating snap as her arm broke. Black didn't pause, beginning to pummel her with both fists, looking less like a vampire and more like a regular, heartbroken man.

Sam was running but Dean got there first, kicking Black off of her, guns forgotten.

"I told you what you wanted!" Black screamed. "You didn't have to kill her!" He was fist-fighting Dean now, while Castiel stood back, hand on her broken arm, the strain of healing it evident on her face.

"Aw, you didn't really think they were gonna let us go, didja?" a honey-smooth voice just over Sam's shoulder scolded. "I told you, Danny, from the moment they came close I knew. These are the _Winchester_ boys. They aren't gonna let us get out of here alive. So I said to myself," she narrated, walking forward and into Sam's field of vision. They were all of them now crowded on one side of the room, far below a boarded-up window. "I said: I wanna kill an angel before I die." She grinned. "Just something I've always wanted to do."

And Sam understood why Marie had stood back, a queen watching her pawns sacrifice themselves first. Clearing the field. Inflicting injuries, weakening the enemy. A vampire leader with her self-preservation out the window. She was going to be a dangerous adversary, and she was heading straight at Castiel.

She lunged. Castiel was knocked back once more, this time against the wall. Castiel tried to push her away physically, but Marie was strong. Sam was right behind her, blade raised, but Marie, pinning Castiel to the wall by only her neck now, gracefully swung around on one leg, her other leg flying out and catching Sam in the gut. He stumbled backwards with a gust of air and went at her again. By now, Castiel had managed to raise an arm to Marie's forehead but before Sam could reach them again, Marie put her mouth up to Castiel's arm and bit down hard.

Castiel gasped and Dean, still brawling with Danny, shouted wordlessly. The distraction gave Danny time to plant a blow to the side of Dean's face, causing an instant eruption of blood to burst from both of Dean's nostrils. At the scent of human blood, Danny's fangs lowered themselves and he opened his mouth to display them. As he leaned forward to lap at the blood spilling onto Dean's shirt, Sam drew his gun and fired into Danny's back, then came running to pull him from Dean. But Dean shook his head frantically. "Cas!" he cried.

Sam whipped around again, not wanting to know what he had missed in his time assisting Dean. And it was as bad as he'd feared; Marie had bitten Castiel's neck and as sucking joyfully at the blood. But Cas still had her hand up and as Sam watched, she blasted Marie backwards, a clear ten feet from where she'd been standing. Despite the wound in her neck, her face was calm. This time Sam didn't waste any time deciding where to go, and ran instead, full tilt, back to Dean and Danny. How stupid could he have been, thinking that an angel needed his help more than Dean? And how stupid had Dean been to send him?

Dean had pulled his blade on Danny but Danny had him pinned to a wall in such a way that he couldn't move his arm to thrust it. Though weakened by the dead man's blood, Danny still had the strength to keep him there, and to stay on his feet despite Dean kicking out at his legs, thrashing wildly, making contact time and again. But movement was distracting Danny and so, blade drawn, Sam crept up behind him.

Danny turned to kick him, and managed to, but unlike Marie he didn't have the coordination to keep Dean against the wall at the same time. Dean fell free and in one smooth motion, whipped his blade forward and sliced through Danny's neck just as he was coming again at Sam.

Sickeningly, it didn't disconnect; Danny crumpled to the floor but his neck was partially together, his body still moving. Disgusted, Sam fired off two shots, finishing the process and fully disconnecting the head from the body. The massive amounts of blood on the floor weren't a problem for Sam, but the thought of shooting through a chunk of skin and muscle to disconnect a head from a body did leave him slightly nauseated, he had to admit.

But there was no time for that now. He and Dean, who had kicked Danny's head away to make sure that the deed really had been done, turned in the same motion to face Castiel, who was circling Marie with one arm raised, blood running down it, and from her neck as well. Her broken arm was still clutched uselessly to her side; she hadn't yet had time to finish healing it.

"C'mon, girlie," Marie was saying. "It's my dying wish. I wanna take some feathers with me. Be a dear." Castiel, unused to the concept of battlefield banter, was saying nothing, just glaring ahead, waiting for Marie to make the first move.

Too late did Sam realize that the circling was about to put Castiel a quarter-circle away from him and Dean, and Marie opposite them all, a perfect position for her to attack from. He was about to begin circling himself when a movement in the shadows behind Marie caught his eye.

Sam didn't think, crying out before he realized that Marie, distracted by Castiel, hadn't noticed the man behind her. "Jimmy, no!" For Jimmy had just charged, his small blade pulled, straight at Marie. She twirled, and in the same motion brought her hands to the sides of his head, split seconds away from snapping his neck. But in the same instant, bullets from both Sam and Dean hit her arms, giving Castiel time to mentally push her away from Jimmy, to the floor. Without hesitation, Dean jumped forward to stand over her, and brought his blade down cleanly through her neck.

Marie's head stayed where it was, long red hair pinned between her back and the floor, holding it there.

For a moment there was no sound in the boathouse but heavy, pained breathing. Then Sam snapped.

"Jimmy!" His voice echoed so loudly that everyone but Castiel jumped, Sam himself included. "What the _fuck_ were you thinking? She was gonna break your neck! I told you to stay put! We had it!"

"Not from what I saw."

"What the fuck?" Sam demanded. The queasiness in his gut that had started at the sight of Danny's stubborn neck tissue intensified at the thought of a fifth corpse-- human-- on the floor of the boathouse. "What the hell is your problem, man?"

"No. What's _your_ problem, Sam?" Jimmy replied. Although his face was bloodless and his hands trembling, his voice was calm and emotionless, almost… dead. "Why don't you get it? I don't care. Live, die. I don't give a shit. In fact given the choice, I'd rather die, okay? So, I figured, I'd take that bitch down with me. Now what about that is so hard to understand?"

Sam and Castiel stared at Jimmy who, along with Dean, stared back at Sam. It felt to Sam like they were back in some sort of face off, everyone waiting for someone to make the next move. "Jimmy," Sam said weakly.

"No." Jimmy spoke as though cutting him off, but truth be told, Sam had nothing more to say. "Let's just clean up and go." His voice never shook, but tears had begun to stream down his cheeks. He wiped his eyes absently and stepped over the bloodied body of the vampire leader.

Now if never before, Sam thought, he really, honestly might be sick.


	9. Chapter 9

Disclaimer, timeframe, summary: see first chapter.

_In the Wake of Angels: Part IX_

As far as awkward car rides go, Dean was pretty sure that theirs back to the motel offered up a new standard for any to follow. Relegated to the passenger's side by a right ankle that had twisted when Danny had dropped him from the wall, Dean was already feeling grumpy at not being able to drive his baby, and he was pretty sure he was in the best mood of anybody in the car.

Next to him, Sam was clutching the steering wheel with both hands; Dean knew that the nauseated expression on his face represented only a tiny fraction of the concern bubbling inside his brother. No matter what Sammy was put through, no matter how close to the dark side he'd edged, there was a good Samaritan inside of Sammy, and a mother hen, and together they could whip up one mean cocktail of concern for others. Dean saw Sam's neck twitch, knew he was aching to look in the rearview at Jimmy, but Sam decided against it.

Well, Dean never had been the most subtle of people; he twisted himself around, under the pretense of asking Castiel about her arm, but his gaze lingered for a long while on Jimmy, who was sitting behind the driver's seat.

"It's healed," Castiel replied curtly, and that's when Dean knew that she was in a bad mood too-- although, truth be told, he had already known, but hadn't wanted to assume he was right.

"And those bites, they're not gonna…."

"Vampire blood won't affect me, Dean. It's not strong enough." She fell silent again.

But naturally none of their moods could compare to Jimmy's; he reclined against the Impala's seat, head back, staring out at the afternoon world rushing by him with an expression on his face that nearly broke Dean's heart. There just wasn't anything that any of them could say, Dean knew, because they could all sympathize with what it was like to lose somebody, and maybe Sam could understand how Jimmy felt to lose Amelia. But _Claire_: Dean knew that none of them could understand that. And even more emphatically he knew that none of them could ever make it anything close to okay. So maybe he didn't blame Jimmy… he was with the hunters now, so he would have to fight harder than ever to stay alive. Maybe it just _wasn't_ worth it.

When they finally made it back to the hotel room and got the gear that needed cleaning inside, Jimmy announced his intentions to take a shower. Sam hesitated, a slight wince on his face, biting back what Dean was also thinking.

Jimmy knew what he wanted to say as well. "Don't worry. I'm not gonna drown myself," he chuckled bitterly. The door closed.

Sam and Dean were left cleaning blood off themselves with washcloths they wetted with bottled water; Sam, who had gotten it mostly on his clothes, made out all right, but the remnants of Dean's nosebleed were not fully coming off of his face and neck without a good deal of soap and scrubbing. That was one reason that he was so surprised when Sam threw him a clean shirt. "C'mon," he said, "we need a grocery run. Cas," he added, "you gonna be able to stay with Jimmy 'til we get back?" Castiel nodded.

"Great. C'mon, Dean," Sam repeated, because Dean still stood shirtless, trying to scrub the sickeningly metallic scent out from under his nostrils. Finally he relented, pulled the shirt on, and followed Sam to the Impala.

"We're talking now," Sam informed him, a slight warning in his voice, as they climbed into their seats and Sam started the engine.

"Now? Sammy, we just killed a nest of _vampires_, man, and Jimmy just confirmed _your_ worst fear. You don't think we deserve a little rest from any drama?"

"You weren't on top of things back there," Sam said stiffly, never taking his eyes from the road. "You were distracted when Cas was hurt and you risked your own neck sending me to help her instead of you. So yeah, we're gonna talk about it, Dean. What's going on?"

Dean slumped back in his seat, exhausted. "I dunno, Sammy. Honestly."

"You kissed her?"

"Yeah. Just a little."

"And what, do you think this is… because of Jeanette?" Dean could tell Sam was getting a little frantic; there was the tiniest pitch change in his voice. "'cause yeah, I'll admit, Dean, she's kinda cute…."

"It's not Jeanette. It's… I dunno. I don't know, Sammy." Everything, all the doubts and confusion that Dean had been holding at bay since the night before came rushing back at him like an over-your-head ocean wave, and Dean clutched the edge of the Impala's seat as though it were a raft holding him above water. "I like her. Him. Cas. She's not the dick that… he was. She makes me feel, like… safe. Okay. Even before she went in Jeanette. But it's way more now, but I don't think it's got anything to do with that. I mean, you know, I-I like chicks, Sammy. I _love_ chicks. I'm not… gay or anything. But I think…" Dean faltered. He didn't know what he thought. "I just like Cas. Castiel Cas. I dunno." He swallowed, hard.

"Well, Cas isn't really a guy," Sam said reasonably, after a long pause, like he didn't know what else to say. Dean risked a glance sideways at him.

"Jeez, Sammy, you look like you're suckin' on a lemon."

Sam didn't laugh. "I thought…" he began stiffly. "I thought that you were gonna say you had a little thing for Jeanette and that everything would blow over once you got used to her being Cas. But you… but it doesn't sound like that," he finished lamely. They were at the supermarket now, and Sam pulled into a space and cut the engine. Neither of them moved.

"No. It's not like that," Dean said quietly, and then the wave pulled him out to sea. Coldness cut off the air to his lungs, dizziness made his stomach roil, and Dean just hung onto the seat of the Impala because yes, somehow, some way, he was into Castiel-- really, really into her-- and it didn't matter whose meatsuit she jumped into. It was the angel Dean cared for. How did that even work?

***

"Castiel?" Jeanette's view of the room shifted as Castiel turned to look at Jimmy. His hair still wet from the shower, the former vessel was standing clad only in sweatpants in the doorway of the motel bathroom, looking scared and small.

"Jimmy," Jeanette heard her voice say.

"Claire and Amelia," Jimmy said slowly, coming forward by a few steps and sinking down onto the edge of his bed. "What happened to them?"

"You know that demons attacked them," Castiel said tonelessly. "Do you really wish to know the details?"

"No." Jimmy shook his head. "I don't mean that, I mean… where… are they?"

"You wanna know if they're in Heaven?"

Jimmy nodded. For the first time that Jeanette could remember, he didn't look hardened by his loss, deadened by it; he looked sad, innocent, open to comfort. He looked… well, like she had felt, barely nineteen years old, looking the state troopers shyly in the eye and asking them to tell her that it would all be okay. She waited with her proverbial breath held to see what Castiel would say.

_Something good_, she urged silently. _Lie if you have to_.

"It's not easily explained," Castiel replied vaguely.

_Gah_.

"I mean, up in Heaven," Jimmy went on slowly. "Or wherever we went… I didn't see any humans. I didn't see any… souls."

Castiel had been standing stiffly by the door this whole time, but when Jeanette urged it to go to Jimmy it did, sitting down on the other bed, facing him. "You never entered Heaven per se, Jimmy."

"Just tell me… they're in a better place," Jimmy pleaded. "Tell me they're not in Hell or stopped existing or something."

Behind the feeling of her own heart aching for Jimmy, Jeanette felt another pain; probing, exploring, she recognized it to be Castiel's. Despite this, the angel's answer was vague, and she couldn't get a read on the level of truth behind it. "They haven't stopped existing," Castiel assured Jimmy. "And they are better off than they were here."

Though they were words that Jeanette would have found unbelievably comforting to have heard when she was in Jimmy's place-- she still did, somewhat, although she wished she could completely believe them-- Jimmy didn't look placated. He twisted his hands in his lap, staring down at them, before looking back up and making eye contact with the angel for a brief moment. His blue eyes were huge, alive with pain.

"Am I ever gonna see them again? Do… do I get to go where they are, or am I… y'know. Beyond repair?"

This time Jeanette felt Castiel's sadness, its anger and loyalty, more strongly than she felt any reactions of her own. Her body was absolutely awash with the angel's emotions, so much so that she closed her inner eyes instinctively, blocking herself off for a moment.

"You have been tainted by the demon blood," Castiel said slowly, a ferocity hiding behind the even pitch of the words. "But you are a good man, James Novak. And when you die, I will not allow your soul to burn. You are a friend to Heaven and I'll escort you myself if need be."

Jeanette saw tears swell up in Jimmy's eyes without warning. "Even if I kill myself?"

"Even then."

Jimmy nodded, the ghost of a smile breaking out on his face, and then he lowered his head. Tears fell into his lap like water melting from icicles. Jeanette could feel herself instinctively reaching out to him in her mind, urging Castiel to go to him, even though she knew it wouldn't. That's why she was so surprised at the next words that came out of her own mouth.

"I can't leave this body to facilitate it; it's too dangerous. But I believe that Jeanette wishes to speak to you."

Jeanette was even more taken aback when Jimmy raised his head, wiping his cheeks, and looked straight through Castiel; of course, it was just a fanciful interpretation of a far-away gaze, since no man could actually see where Jeanette was now. Nevertheless, she felt that Jimmy really was looking straight at her, inside her own body, and to have another human actually acknowledge her-- her, not Castiel-- was enough to make Jeanette want to cry.

"Hi, Jeanette," Jimmy said softly. "I know you can't say anything back. I've been where you are."

"Jeanette says that she's been where you are as well," Castiel relayed. "Two years ago she lost her parents."

Jimmy nodded. "Maybe they've met Claire and Amelia," he suggested, his voice breaking, but soft with hope. "Maybe there's like, a support group for the families of vessels up there." He laughed tearfully. In her head, Jeanette laughed too. "If I see them I'll say hi."

"She says, 'you're still going to kill yourself?'"

"Jeanette… does anyone ever call you Jeanie?" Jimmy began, obviously needing a moment of hedging. Despite that, and despite the fact that the answer was no, Jeanette instructed Castiel not to let Jimmy know this. She liked the sound of it, liked how it made her feel.

"Jeanie, you're so young," Jimmy said at last. "If this war ends, if… if Castiel can let you go… you're gonna make a life for yourself. Get married, and have kids, but even if this world goes back to goodness, there's nothing here for me. I can't live without them."

"She asks you when."

Jimmy smiled, still looking into Jeanette's eyes. "Soon. I feel like… there's one more thing for me to do. I feel like I'm gonna help one more time. Sounds dumb, I know, but I do. I dunno what, but I can wait for it. I don't think it'll be much longer."

Castiel paused as it struggled to put Jeanette's thoughts into words. "I believe that she says she admires your faith."

Jimmy shook his head. "It isn't faith. It's just… I want that world for you. I want this war to end so the angels can leave, and you can have that family. And Sam, and Dean. So everyone can have their families. I want that… so badly."

Castiel paused, almost as though collecting itself before relaying Jeanette's response. "She thanks you," it told him softly.

Jimmy smiled. "Hang in there, Jeanie," he said quietly.


	10. Chapter 10

Disclaimer, timeframe, summary: see first chapter.

_In the Wake of Angels: Part X_

They had attacked the nest on a Monday, giving them only two days to prepare for the fight-- or a week and two days, as Bobby had pointed out when they'd told him, though he'd been quickly shot down. There was no guarantee that the demons would show up next week when no vampires came to meet them this time. In fact, Dean was fairly sure they wouldn't.

Tuesday was spent talking strategy, cleaning weapons, and training Jimmy. Although Sam had initially refused to take him again, Jimmy had asked him to step outside for a moment and when they'd come back into the motel room, Sam, though visibly upset, told Dean that he had relented. Dean, who had been conveniently coating bullets in holy water very, very near the door, had still only managed to hear snippets of the conversation, but he thought the gist of it was that Jimmy was a grown man-- nearly a decade older than Sam, in fact-- and that what he did with his own life was of his choosing. And he had been of help in the fight with Marie's nest, even if Dean knew Sam didn't want to admit it; he'd delayed the green-shirted vampire for long enough to allow Sam to get behind him and ultimately, though it had been reckless and stupid, he'd distracted Marie as well. So, it seemed, they were going into Kavanaugh's pub with a full deck. Not that this necessarily meant much.

But come Wednesday morning, Dean knew that Sam had begun to regret his decision. At breakfast, which was microwave burritos eaten wordlessly on the beds, Sam kept throwing glances in Jimmy's direction, his forehead furrowed with worry. Dean, though, had other things on his mind-- had another person on his mind.

He and Castiel hadn't really talked since they had kissed at the gas station three days ago. First there had been the nest, then the drama with Jimmy, and now their minds were on the demons they were about to attack. And while Dean wasn't looking forward to their first post-kiss conversation, he had to admit: without Castiel's constant company, the past few days had been unbearably lonely. He went to bed and woke up in the morning, all the while feeling… sad. Not angry, not terrified, not any of the wartime emotions he'd gotten used to. He was just down, sort of adrift, and whenever he stopped to think about it, the clarity and simplicity of the emotion startled him. Despite all the confusion surrounding the subject, through it all what he wanted and what would make him feel better remained clear: he wanted Castiel. He wanted time and conversation and maybe another kiss. And something inside of Dean warned him that the loneliness would just grow and grow until he got it.

But Dean was a prideful man. He didn't like admitting when he needed someone, and he especially didn't like not knowing _why_ he needed them. His feelings for Castiel weren't… _sexual_. At least not in the way Dean was used to things being sexual. He didn't want to _jump her bones_ or _dance the_ _horizontal mambo_ with her, or anything like that. Truthfully, he didn't really know what he was feeling. All he knew was that, the first chance he got, he needed to be alone with her. Needed to touch her hand, look her in the eye.

He got his chance late Wednesday morning, when Sam shepherded them all into the Impala and directed Dean to an abandoned field he'd noticed earlier, where a number of tree-stumps provided perfect ledges for targets. He pointed Jimmy towards one cluster of them, empty beer cans and guns in hand, and Dean seized his opportunity, taking Castiel by the hand and pulling her across to the other side of the field

"Dean," she said tonelessly, allowing herself to be led. "What are you doing?"

"We need to talk, Cas," Dean said, keeping his voice low, aware that the field was not big enough to allow them to speak at normal volume without being heard by Sam and Jimmy. "Look, I need to know… what's going on?"

"We're talking."

"Don't be an ass," Dean snapped, although he heard a pleading undertone to his voice that he knew Castiel would pick up on as well. "What's going on with us? Are you mad at me? Are you mad I kissed you?"

"No."

"Then please, I don't know what you're thinking," Dean said, and it was definitely a full-out plea now. "Let me in that head of yours because I need to know if I'm making stuff up or if there's something… between us."

"There is something between us," Castiel assured him, and for a moment Dean's heart soared. Then she went on. "There always has been. Dean, I have always considered you a friend, even before I was fully capable of understanding what that meant. I care for you deeply."

"That's not…" Dean swallowed, blinked and pressed on. "That's not what I mean. Cas. I don't know how this works with you guys but, is there… something else?"

"Is there attraction?"

Caught off guard by the word, Dean nodded.

"Dean," Castiel said quietly. "Dean, I am very, very confused right now. I don't know…" she trailed off, and began again. "I've just barely come to understand what friendship is. And now there's this for me to understand and I'm… not sure. Anna says--"

"Anna?" Dean interrupted. "You talked to Anna about this?" He knew that he should be annoyed, worried, given that he'd slept with Anna before, but instead he found it… endearing.

"I did," Castiel replied. "She said to do what makes me happy."

Dean's heart was pounding; he could feel the rhythm all the way down his limbs. He struggled to keep his voice quiet though he felt it would be drowned out by the sound. "Do I make you happy, Cas?"

"Yes," Castiel said, and her voice was so loud and so definite that the 's' became a hiss in her mouth. "I'm not familiar with labels. I don't… completely understand how humans distinguish between types of relationships. But yes, you make me happy, Dean. Do I… make you happy?" She cocked her head to the side.

A sob strangled its way out of Dean's throat. It surprised him; he hadn't realized that it had been waiting there. "Yeah. You make me happy, Cas. You really do." He reached out and took her by the hand again, and she brought up her other one and placed it atop his. Dean closed his eyes, savoring the contact, feeling the warmth of Jeanette's small hands and trying desperately-- _desperately_-- to feel for Castiel underneath the skin and bone and physical reality.

They stood unmoving, and nothing broke through the moment until across the field, a sudden stream of gunfire erupted. It wasn't until then that Dean retroactively noticed its absence and realized that Sam and Jimmy had been keeping quiet, straining to eavesdrop on the conversation on the other side of the field.

Dean smiled. He really didn't care.

***

So, they were together now. Or something. Sam wasn't sure; he wasn't sure they were sure either. He and Jimmy had been less than subtle in their attempts to listen in-- after all, how could they not notice the absence of gunfire when target practice had been the whole purpose of the little outing? But it didn't matter. Dean was his brother and Sam decided that this gave him eavesdropping privileges.

When he'd snuck a glance across the field and found Dean and Castiel holding hands, though, Sam realized he had better at least put on somewhat of a show. Laughing-- surprised when Jimmy laughed too-- Sam scrambled to set the beer cans up on the tree stumps and began firing on them, pleased when Jimmy hit almost every one. When they'd all been knocked over, they retrieved them, setting them up again. Sam returned to the firing line he'd toed in the dirt to find Dean and Castiel had joined them and were standing, not touching, but with mere inches separating their hands.

"Care to join us?" Sam offered amicably, handing Castiel a gun, knowing Dean would already be armed. And so together the four of them practiced, moving gradually farther back, reducing Jimmy's handicap as the day went on. They spoke infrequently, but it was the most comfortable Sam had felt in a long while. It was almost-- almost-- enough to allow him to forget that in just a few hours they would be walking near-blindly into a pub of demons with a suicidal civilian in tow, not to mention a newly committed Dean (_committed Dean_? Shouldn't that be some sort of oxymoron?), who might easily prove even more distracted in this battle than in the last.

Because occasionally, there was a twinge inside Sam that urged him to push all that away, and he was feeling one hell of one now. Despite the fact that he had left and Dean had stayed, something in Sam knew that he himself had become the one to embrace the life now, that it was Dean and not him who would drift to sleep at night, half-consciously wondering about a normal existence. But still… he slipped up sometimes, and it just happened. And gun in hand, sending beer cans flying, Sam closed his eyes and opened them again… and for a minute or two he was just a guy, just a twenty-something kid who lived in Middle-of-Nowhere, West Virginia, come out to horse around in an empty field with his slightly crazy friend Jimmy, his big brother Dean, and Dean's new angel of a girlfriend. Sam smiled, and the beer cans continued to fly, each round looking a bit more distorted as they were set back up on the stumps.

But he wasn't a normal guy, of course, and when his watch told him it was getting past four, he reluctantly directed the group back to the car. The last few hours were spent nervously pacing the motel room, and Sam wished desperately that the time would just come for them to leave already. More than once he turned to Jimmy, who was reclining on his bed mindlessly channel surfing. Every time though, he found he had nothing to say. There was just a feeling in his gut-- not a _premonition_ feeling or anything like that, just the urge to shake the man's hand or something. The sad realization that Jimmy didn't care whether or not he walked back out of that pub tonight. The fact that he very easily might not. However weird it had initially been to have Jimmy bunking with them, permanently Castiel-less, Sam had grown used to his presence, especially when Dean was spending more and more time with Cas and less with him. It would be even moreso now.

Dean insisted on driving despite his ankle not being one-hundred percent yet. Sam didn't argue with him, although there was a very brief, very childish moment of jealously when he wondered who would be riding shotgun. But Castiel slid into the backseat next to Jimmy as she had always done, and Sam eased into the passenger side, shutting the door behind him with exaggerated gentility.

Dean blasted the stereo to conversational impossibility level; Sam wondered if he was doing it to avoid Sam's questions, or doing it to energize himself for the coming fight. It could easily have been either, or both. A glance to the backseat showed Jimmy blank-faced as usual, but in Castiel's demeanor there was something different. The tiny curvature flickering on her lips might just have been a smile.

Kavanaugh's was a nondescript brown building with semicircular flags in Irish and American colors draped across its front. The lot was mostly empty, which seemed reasonable for dinnertime on a weekday, and it was relatively close to the highway. Overall it was an underwhelming location for a showdown, although it backed up to a thick patch of woods that seemed moderately more atmospheric.

"Can you tell how many of them there are?" Sam asked Castiel as they walked inside. Frowning, she shook her head.

"Something's blocking me. It's possible I won't be able to enter, either."

"I don't like that," Sam announced flatly.

"Sammy, I haven't like anything for the past _year_," Dean replied, and Sam knew he was right. Since when did they have the luxury of picking and choosing their fights?

As it turned out, Castiel had no problem entering. She followed Dean inside, trailed by Jimmy and finally Sam. The interior of the pub was equally innocuous; less than two dozen patrons milled about, mostly at tables but some in front of dart boards. Two men were hunched on their stools at the bar. The bartender was middle-aged and looked friendly, calling out to them as they entered. "Gentleman! Lady," he added, tipping his head to Castiel who, surprising Sam, nodded cordially back. "Haven't seen you lot at Kav's before. What'll it be?"

"Three lagers and a water," Dean called confidently back, and for the second time that day an eerie feeling of normalcy washed over Sam. Then, as his nose adjusted to the smell of alcohol and cologne, he began to detect hints of sulfur beneath it.

Dean was ambling over to the bar, already looking like a regular; Castiel trailed behind him, looking more obviously feminine than ever against the uber-masculine backdrop of the room. Dean took a seat, leaving one empty stool between himself and the rightmost of the two men already there. Castiel, then Jimmy, copied him and slid onto their stools, leaving Sam to take the end seat. He perched lightly, scanning the room, marking the exits and boundaries, noticing any place that might be big enough for a demon to be hiding.

"Here ya go," the bartender announced cheerfully, setting their drinks down; he correctly placed the glass of water in front of Castiel.

"Thank you, sir," Dean drawled, and smiled.

"Excuse me." The voice was new and, at the sound of it, Sam stopped glancing about the room and focused his attention. It was coming from the man seated next to Dean, and there was something about it far too smooth and high-brow for a place such as 'Kav's'. "I wonder if you might by any chance be acquainted with my friend Marie."

"Marie," Dean repeated, running the name around in his mouth like he was trying hard to remember its importance. "Marie. Tall lady, red hair? _Well endowed_?"

The stranger smiled. Without the demon in him, he might have been a friendly-looking man; something in his side-parted brown hair and square jaw reminded Sam of a dentist. "That'll be her."

"Yeah, I've seen her around. Her and her posse."

"Might you know if she'll be keeping our appointment for tonight?"

Again, Dean screwed up his face like he was thinking hard. "You know, I do seem to remember her mentioning something about not being able to make it tonight. Sorry, pal."

"That's a shame," the man replied.

"Yeah. Now I remember real well, actually. She mentioned it right before I _cut her head off_." The bartender had disappeared into the back room and no one seemed to paying them any mind, but Dean still lowered his voice so that Sam had to strain to hear it.

"As I said. A pity."

"Yeah. Pity. Look, pal," Dean growled, any hint of his previous faked friendliness now completely evaporated. "Let's take this outside, huh? We don't want to hurt any civilians, and you don't want to hurt any potential meatsuits. Right? Right."

The demon dentist grinned, his eyes flipping briefly to black, and suddenly there was a feeling in Sam's stomach like a fist-sized ball of solid ice had dropped in for a visit there. "_Potential_ meatsuits?" he repeated. "You might wanna take another look, friend."

All around the bar, patrons dropped what they were doing and turned their eyes to the bar, staring without blinking at Sam and the group. Even the bartender reappeared, looking considerably less friendly than he had to begin with. Sam cursed under his breath. There were no civilians to be worried about here. Every damn person in that bar was a demon.


	11. Chapter 11

Disclaimer, timeframe, summary: see first chapter.

Citation for the exorcism transcription: , article 'Exorcism'

_In the Wake of Angels: Part XI_

"Shit," Dean spat. On either side of Jimmy, Sam and Castiel tensed. Jimmy himself realized it last, although it didn't take him long: the entire pub was full of demons.

_Shit_.

Despite everything-- despite all that he had seen in his time with Castiel, despite the fact that he had spent the last few weeks calmly waiting for the right moment to die-- Jimmy still felt that there was a good possibility of pissing himself. Some things just scared a man no matter what, and this was one of them.

"You killed our vampires," the preppy-looking demon talking to Dean scolded coolly. "Now we'll have to catch our own humans. Less time for darts," he remarked loudly, and the demons at the dart boards chuckled.

"Yeah?" Dean scoffed. "Well maybe you could slow down a little. I read the papers from around here. Why you need so many humans?" Preppy smiled.

"Oh, you know. We've got family coming to town. _All_ of us do."

"So what are you guys?" Dean continued. "Some rag-tag battalion? Or just a bunch of scavengers?"

"Oh, now I know you're not seriously asking me questions about the _Rising_," Preppy laughed softly. "As though you had any force behind you to hold an interrogation? Incidentally, I must admit: I'm disappointed. Here's Winchester and Winchester, but the 'co'… is a poor caged birdie and a dried-up husk. Not quite as impressive as your résumés suggest."

"Guess I was just stalling," Dean suggested, smiling easily. Jimmy knew that he was frightened, though, and in turn that frightened Jimmy even more.

"Well enough of that," Preppy announced. "I bore easily."

And then, to Jimmy's eyes, all hell broke loose. Literally.

Demons sprung at them from all sides. What Jimmy had only guessed to be at most eighteen or twenty patrons when he walked in now seemed like a hundred black-eyed nightmares. Sam, Dean and Castiel were all engaged, each seeming to take on two or three apiece. To Jimmy's confused eyes, it was hard to keep track of which demon was which and nearly impossible to tell who was fighting whom. It did seem, though, that no one was going to fight _him_-- everyone in the room seemed to be utterly ignoring him.

Or so he thought. A thick hand on his shoulder told him otherwise. He spun around to see the bartender, his eyes black as onyx, and similarly reflective of the bar's lighting fixtures. He was looking definitely not-so-nice now, his smile twisted and animalistic as he threw his first punch.

Jimmy moved on instinct, ducking, and in the same motion pulling a vial of holy water from his pocket. He came up on the other side of the demon, splashing him in the face, using his moment of distraction to push him back and into the open, away from the bar. He grabbed another container from his pocket and fast as he could, ringed the ground around the bartender with rock salt, trapping him like a bug in the circle. For good measure, he doused him once again with holy water.

The demon growled and lunged at Jimmy, but couldn't break the salt barrier. Jimmy grinned. It was just like he and Sam had planned; he was unlikely to be capable of doing any real damage, but he could at least trap the demons, keep as many as possible from the fight.

Jimmy reached into a pocket yet again-- he'd had the good sense to buy a pair of cargo pants, something he thought Sam and Dean would be wise to do-- and pulled out a slip of paper on which was written lines of Latin in Sam's loopy hand. _Don't waste time on this if you've got more than one on you_, Sam had warned, but the rest of the demons still seemed occupied.

"Regna terrae," Jimmy began, and inside his salt trap, the demon writhed. "Cantate Deo, sal… _psallite_ Domino. Qui fertis super caelum, caeli ad… Orientum."

"Jimmy, look out!" Sam's voice screamed suddenly. Jimmy raised his head from the paper in time to see a demon's foot as it connected his with his gut. He gasped, not dropping the paper, but as he stumbled backwards, he kicked away some of the salt from the barrier holding the bartender hostage. He and the new demon, a motherly woman, exchanged a satisfied glance. Then, together, they advanced on Jimmy.

Desperate, his mind going blank, Jimmy did the only thing he could think to do, and began the ritual again. He didn't think it would exorcise them, not really, but maybe it would disorient them long enough for someone else to step up and finish them.

Yeah, right.

_Oh well_, Jimmy thought, _guess I didn't have some last big contribution after all_.

"Regna terrae," he said again, "Cantate Deo, psallite Domino. Qui fertis super caelum, caeli ad Orientum." The demons shook, gripping their hair, but each line seemed to affect them less. He reached for the vial of holy water to splash them again, but found it empty. He had another… but what goddamn pocket had he put it in? There were so many….

"Ecce," he continued, stumbling over the Latin as fast as he could, "dabit voci suae vocem virtu-virtutis…"

The demons were practically shaking it off now, advancing towards Jimmy once again. He backed up, bracing himself, fists raised to go down swinging. Then:

"Sam!" Dean's voice shouted. "By the bar! I got this, go!"

His view obscured by the two demons, Jimmy couldn't see what the others were doing, or tell how close Sam was to him. He didn't know if Sam would make it in time until suddenly both demons spasmed and leaned forward as though about to puke. Their collapse gave Jimmy a clear view of Sam coming towards them, hand raised, eyes squinting in deep concentration. Black smoke was dribbling out of the demon's mouths, accompanied by horrible choking sounds. Jimmy thought for one wild moment they might explode, though he'd never seen that happen before, and then it was over, and their bodies collapsed dead to the ground.

"You okay?" Sam panted; a line of blood was running from one nostril and had reached his lip. He was sweating, too, and Jimmy knew that the two simultaneous exorcisms had put a major drain on his system. He didn't seem to slow, though, turning and sprinting back towards the other demons the moment Jimmy had tremblingly nodded yes.

His courage shamed Jimmy. Here he was, a man not afraid to die, and yet he hung back from getting hurt, while Sam charged right back into the fray. It didn't sit right. Jimmy finally located the other holy water container, this one a recycled Poland Spring bottle, in his left bottom pocket, and ran.

He tackled the first demon he saw, one of the two who was fist-fighting with Dean. Next to them, Sam was holding a demon still with his mind but had fallen back on verbal exorcism. Three more bodies were on the floor here, and Jimmy had a sudden sinking feeling like he'd lost a car in his blind spot while driving on the highway; there just didn't seem to be enough demons accounted for. But he couldn't worry about it now, having committed himself to fighting the demon-- a small Asian woman-- who he'd jumped from behind.

He upended the Poland Spring, splashing warm water on his own face in the process, and the demon screamed, crumpling to her knees under Jimmy's added weight. Above him he could tell that Dean was now handling the single demon just fine, and Jimmy felt a surge of pride at having helped in some way. He pushed himself up off the woman, who in turn pushed herself back to her feet and spun on Jimmy, punching him clear across the face. Blinking away blood, he returned the blow; there was the sound of the possessed woman's nose breaking, although Jimmy imagined that was the least of her concerns.

Not hindered in the slightest, the woman kicked out at Jimmy, catching him behind one knee and nearly upending him. He didn't fall but the blow left him seriously off-balance; he grabbed a fistful of salt from the open bag in his pocket and threw it across the ground in front of him, giving him a moment to recoup. He had known it would be painfully temporary but it literally lasted less than the time Jimmy took to exhale, as the male demon that Dean had been sparring with was knocked down, breaking it. Luckily, though, he pulled Jimmy's demon down with him, and they both sprawled on the floor.

Acting nearly in unison, Jimmy and Dean both stepped down-- hard-- on their respective demon's chests. Jimmy realized then that he'd lost his text to the exorcism ritual in the latest confusion, but Dean was already reciting it from memory, and both demons were writhing on the floor. Jimmy threw all his efforts into keeping them there, putting his full weight on the woman, kicking out at the man with his other leg, dousing them with the last of his holy water. Just when he was afraid he could hold them no longer, twin clouds of smoke erupted from the demon's mouths; Jimmy stumbled back in surprise and fell to the floor. When the smoke had dissipated, Dean was at his side, pulling him to his feet.

"That was awesome, man," Dean told him sincerely, thumping him on the back. "Really awesome." Jimmy nodded to accept the compliment, too out of breath to do so verbally. But Dean was gone, sucker-punching a demon who approached Sam from behind while Sam focused on his exorcism.

No more demons seemed to be coming at Jimmy for the time being, so he took a moment to explore why there seemed to be a shortage of demons on the battlefield; he now also noticed that the bar also seemed to be short one angel. Jimmy had a bad feeling deep in his gut at the looks of this; he scanned the room again, but knew he wouldn't find anything he hadn't the first time through; Kavanaugh's was just a big, open square. Except… except for the back room.

An instant later, Jimmy was bursting through the door, and nearly screamed at what he saw there. Five or six demons had Castiel cornered; a few more were dead on the floor, but Castiel was having a harder time fighting off the ones cornering her now. And it was painfully clear why: cuts and gashes infested every inch of Castiel's skin, dripping with blood that Jimmy knew was partially from the demons. Reflexively, Jimmy ran one hand down his arm, feeling the scars beneath his fingers from his own blood poisoning. For a full, terrifying moment he was unable to make a sound. But then he looked at Castiel-- really looked at her-- and instead saw Jeanie, saw a fellow vessel, being hurt. Typically in the middle of a fight he would have tried to keep the humanity of the angel's host as far from his mind as possible-- far too distracting for someone with his history. But this time, seeing the body for whose it really was broke the spell that fear had cast.

"Sam! Dean! Back here!" Jimmy yelped. The demons paid him no mind, nor did they react when Dean came running. Their only activity was to keep cutting on Jeanie, slice after slice, not slowed when Castiel managed to kill one among them, cutting on each other as well and wiping their blood all across her body.

"Castiel!" Dean shouted. "Run! We're fine, go!" Mindlessly he whipped out a gun and began firing rounds, hitting the demons in their backs, only adding to the frenzy of blood in the room. Frustrating, growling, he charged them directly, followed by Jimmy, who lunged and grabbed the closest demon around the neck. Behind them he could almost feel the energy flowing as Sam came bursting in the room and tried to fling them off Castiel with his diminishing powers.

Jeanie-- damn it, _Castiel_-- obeyed Dean and made a beeline for the back door. The demons held back, not following her, just waiting. But the preppy-looking demon, the first who had spoken, stood up from the middle of the pile and laughed.

"Oh no," he said. "The bitch goes nowhere." He grinned. "Kavanaugh's Pub: angels check in but they don't check out."

"Dean," Sam moaned, pointing at the door. Above it, signs were carved into the wood; Jimmy recognized none of them, but understood their purpose, which the demon confirmed as though reading his thoughts.

"Oh yeah-- angel trap. One above every exit. Nothing angelic gets out, no… _telepathic_ data. No _calls_ for help. And certainly no angels themselves. Not in their meatsuits, anyway."

Trapped, Castiel turned to fight once more, and the demons descended upon her. Jimmy, Sam and Dean all ran at them but, just as quickly as it had begun, it ended and the demons fled. Jimmy knew it could only mean one thing: Jeanie's body had been sufficiently poisoned. Dean knew it too.

"Jimmy," he cried. "Shoot the door!" Jimmy pulled his gun from its holster and shot straight through the symbols holding Castiel hostage; he lurched forward and threw the door open for Dean, who flew through with Castiel in his arms. Behind them, stumbling, weakened, came Sam.

The spring air outside was almost laughably fresh, cool on Jimmy's skin and free of the scents of blood and sulfur. Not far away, trees rustled their leaves slowly in the slight wind. Dean had laid Castiel on the grass and was kneeling beside her, cradling her head, apologizing again and again for not getting there faster.

"It… is _not_ your fault, Dean," Castiel insisted from the ground. Her voice sounded weak.

"Oh, God," Dean choked, wiping blood out of Castiel's eyes. "What do I do, Sammy?" Sam shrugged helplessly; he had no answer.

But Jimmy did. All at once, he knew what his last act was going to be; once he realized it, it felt like he'd known all along.

"You take me," he said clearly, firmly. "It's too late for Jeanie but I'm right here."

"You've been infected," Sam reminded him, shaking his head. "There's no getting rid of it completely." But Jimmy knew the answer to that too.

"I'm tainted-- me, Jimmy, my _soul_. But my body's clean now." Then Sam understood as well

"No, Jimmy," he began, protesting out of instinct, but Jimmy held up a hand to silence him.

"It makes sense," he said with certainty. "Cas takes this body. I don't want it anymore anyway."

There was a strange, surprised gasp from the ground as Dean caught on to Jimmy's plan. "Would that work?" he asked Castiel. "If Jimmy left his meatsuit would you be able to take it again?" Castiel nodded.

"I believe so," she said slowly. A faint glow was beginning behind her eyes, inside her mouth, but she held on fiercely.

"No," Sam said again. "Jimmy, do you know what you're--"

"We don't have time to talk about this," Jimmy insisted, cutting him off. "We're doing this. I want to." Then for the first time, he faltered. "How… how should I…?"

With Dean's help, Castiel struggled into a sitting position. "You don't need to do anything, Jimmy," she assured him, her voice gentle. "If you're truly open to me, I'll be able to push you out. There won't be any pain."

"I'm open," Jimmy whispered, his eyes beginning to burn. "I promise, I'm open."

"If I'm to do it, I need to do it now."

"I know," Jimmy told her. His heart raced. He nodded tightly at Dean, then turned to Sam, holding his hand out. "You're a good man, Sam," he told him, earnestly, and Sam grabbed his hand and pumped it back like he never intended to let go.

"You're a _great_ man, Jimmy," Sam replied, his voice rough. "And you would have made a great hunter."

Jimmy laughed. He felt the urgency and thick, sticky emotion of the situation, but he was unaffected by it; instead it felt rather like he was climbing on top of it, using it to stand taller, reach the better air above.

"Kneel, Jimmy," Castiel said, and Jimmy let go of Sam's hand and kneeled, lowering his face so the angel could take it in both hands.

"Good luck, guys. You too, Jeanie," Jimmy said, looking Castiel in the eye, almost seeing through to the frightened girl within. _I'm coming now, Claire_, he added silently. And then there was a pressure, a release, and a blinding light, and then there was nothing anymore.


	12. Chapter 12

Disclaimer, timeframe, summary: see first chapter.

_In the Wake of Angels: Part XII_

It seemed a strange goodbye to Dean because before there were four living bodies, four voices in the conversation, and afterwards that wasn't visibly different. It had still changed, though, of course, because Jimmy was gone and Jeanette was present, shaking weakly in Dean's arms, in control of her own muscles for the first time in weeks. The moment her body had become her own again, she'd begun to whimper.

"Did it work?" Dean said quietly. "Are you there, Cas?" Jimmy's body, Jimmy-less now, nodded its head.

"I'm here. Jimmy is gone."

Dean's crouched knees were shaking, and he gently lowered Jeanette to the ground so that he himself could fall backwards to the grass. For a long moment, he sat unmoving with a hand across his eyes. Then finally he summoned the last of his energy and pushed himself back up to a crouch, leaning over Jeanette. "You okay, sweetheart?" he asked gently. She nodded. "Okay. Listen, I know you're scared and I know you've been through a lot, but it's okay. We're gonna take care of you." She nodded again, still either too hurt or too frightened to speak.

Dean stood and stumbled over to Sam, who had also plopped himself down in the grass and was breathing heavily. "How you doin', Sammy?" he asked, the concern even more evident in his voice now.

Sam shook his head. "I can't believe Jimmy's gone," he said quietly.

Dean knelt down beside him, taking him by one shoulder and shaking him slightly. "I know, Sammy, but now's not the time yet," he told him patiently. "How's your mojo? Be honest."

"I'm pretty drained," Sam admitted. "I don't know how many more I could pull off tonight."

"Okay." All business, Dean pushed himself back to his feet once again. "You think those demons will've stayed around to see if their poisoning worked?" he asked, posing the question generally.

"Offhand, I'd say yeah," Sam replied, also on his feet now. He pointed into the trees behind the pub, and Dean followed his line of vision. Something was moving in the shadows, too fast and solid to be rustling tree branches.

"What are they waiting for?" Sam wondered aloud.

"I dunno, but we're not waiting for them," Dean replied. "Stay with her," he told Sam, and pulling his gun he ran at the trees, knowing Cas would follow.

The angel, newly returned to his longer-legged form, caught up quickly. They entered the woods together, staying close, and as Dean's eyes adjusted to the darkness he saw about a dozen demons darting through the trees-- the four who had lived through the blood poisoning, plus some that had either escaped exorcism somehow, or come as reinforcements. Dean didn't care; he was going to kill them all.

But something was off. They were running, but in the same direction as he and Cas were.

"What's going on?" he demanded, but Cas was giving chase.

The faster he ran, the faster the demons scampered ahead, until it was perfectly clear that they were running away from the angel. Despite his strong legs, Dean was having a hard time keeping up. Frustrated, he began shooting, hitting the demons with bullets coated in salt and holy water, picking them off one by one, knocking them to the forest floor. Nearly frantic, they pushed themselves back up and sprinted away again. But Cas, seemingly also growing tired of the chase, waved his arm…

… and the demons collapsed. When Dean caught up they were identically pinned to the ground, writhing in panic, and Cas was looming over them, looking terrifying even to Dean. Cas glanced over at him; a shiver passed through Dean when their eyes met. Then Cas raised his hand again, and a cluster of simultaneous geysers of smoke exploded into the air. The branches around them bent back; it wasn't impossible to think that even the trunks were swaying from the force.

When it was over, the forest was so quiet that Dean was suddenly self-conscious of his own breathing. He waited a moment before speaking, half-spooked, half-reverent. "What the hell was that?" he hissed finally. "That was some damn strong mojo."

"I don't have to hold back to protect my vessel anymore," Cas answered tonelessly. "They knew that. It's why they ran."

"Oh," Dean said blankly, staring at the bodies on the forest floor. They looked more than exorcised or killed; they look like they'd been… freeze dried, like a good amount of the moisture in their bodies had fled with the demon smoke. Their skin was wrinkled and looked as though it would crack under pressure. Dean shivered. He looked over at Cas and was surprised to find him shaking as well.

"You hurt, Cas?" he asked gently.

"No."

Dean put a hand on his arm, trying to offer comfort, but Cas didn't react. "Let's go home," Dean suggested tiredly, dropping his hand, confused and hurt but too exhausted to argue. Cas turned and started back, and once again Dean struggled to keep pace.

When they neared the edge of the forest, though, and heard Sam's voice, Dean broke into a run. "She's lost too much blood!" Sam shouted as they burst from the forest and sprinted to her side. Sam crouched by Jeanette, his big hands wrapped around a gash in her forearm that had been bandaged, as had a dozen others, with strips of Sam's t-shirt. In the light from the single bulb next to Kavanaugh's back door, Dean could see that she had already bled through them. Jeanette was moaning, no longer fully conscious, her short hair tangling as her head lolled from side to side.

"Heal her," Dean snapped at Cas. The angel knelt, putting a hand on the two largest gashes, but a moment later he shook his head.

"There's too much demon blood. I can't reach her."

"What do you mean you can't--" Dean began, but Sam cut him off by struggling to his feet.

"Dean. She needs a hospital. She needs a transfusion. _Now_," he added, and Dean sprung to life, grabbing Jeanette's small body up in his arms. He sprinted around Kavanaugh's to the front lot where the Impala sat, loyally waiting, gleaming in the moonlight. They all reached the car simultaneously; Sam slid silently into the back seat, helping pull Jeanette out of Dean's arms, accepting her head into his lap. Dean closed the door behind her and turned, but before he could sprint to the driver's seat, he was stopped in his tracks at the sight of Cas already sitting there. Surprising himself, he didn't argue, but wrenched the passenger door open and jumped in.

Cas drove-- no key needed, Dean saw-- as though he'd done it a million times before, guiding the Impala quickly to the highway and taking off at full speed, immediately entering the passing lane. "Do you even know where the hell you're going?" Dean demanded, able to keep quiet no longer. But Cas's reply was calm.

"This is the way to the nearest hospital."

Letting it go, Dean clamored around in his seat to look back at Sam and Jeanette. "How's she doing?" he asked roughly.

"Bad," Sam replied, sounding terrified. "Her heart's racing but I can barely feel a pulse anymore."

"Step on it, Cas," Dean ordered. The Impala accelerated smoothly; they had to be doing at least a hundred.

"Hang in there, Jeanette," Sam murmured, and at the sound of his voice, Dean's stomach lurched uncomfortably.

"How far are we from the hospital?" Dean demanded.

"Another thirteen minutes at this speed," Cas replied.

"Damn it," Dean growled. "She's not gonna make it. Okay, Cas, pull over. Here's what you need to do--"

"Dean."

"You need to take her, and you need to fly her there, you understand? You need to--"

"Dean." Sam's voice was quiet, but was still enough to break through Dean's loud string of imperatives. "Don't bother. Slow down, Cas. She's gone."

"What?" Dean yelped. He turned around again, kneeling backwards on the seat, not willing to believe it.

"Shock," Sam said quietly, almost to himself, as they rolled to a gentle stop in the shoulder of the road. "Blood loss and demon blood and Cas leaving…." Dean reached his hand out desperately, feeling for Jeanette's carotid pulse like he was grasping at a life raft. Sam was right; there was nothing. He looked her body up and down, noticing for the first time that under the bandages both arms were slit open in roughly vertical lines from the wrists to the elbows. The demons had been less careful to preserve the vessel for questioning this time, or maybe had just been feeling more malicious. Jeanette had been _drained_, a lost cause long ago. She hadn't even had time to say anything. He had kissed her lips and held her hands and yet had never actually gotten to _meet_ her.

"Damn it," Dean growled, sliding back into his seat. "_Fuck_." His stomach heaved again and he threw open the door, stumbling out into the cool night air and away from the car. His arms wrapped around himself, he stood perfectly still and waited for the ominous nausea to subside. When the breeze blew, he discovered that he was crying by the feeling of the air on his cheeks. He stared listlessly off into the distance, seeing the lights of a city on the horizon, bright and steady as the stars above them. And Dean closed his eyes.

Eventually, he felt a presence behind him and, forcing himself to look, found Cas, his face serene but his hands clenched tightly at his sides. His steely blue eyes bore into Dean like searchlights. And Dean waited, waited for the angel to come to him, put his arms around him and take the pain away. But Cas didn't move and somehow, stupidly, that hurt more than anything else.

***

"Head back to the shooting field, Dean," Sam said quietly, when they reached the exit for their motel. "We need to burn her body."

In the backseat, where he had taken over the duty of sitting with his former vessel, Castiel stared dumbly out the window, seeing nothing. When the car stopped, he climbed out smoothly with the corpse he'd once occupied cradled in his arms, further bloodying his clothes. Dean and Sam set about collecting wood, piling it in a roughly rectangular formation on a patch of field that had next to no grass. Castiel watched them, having moved no more than a step away from the car.

Could this really be the same field in which, mere hours before, he and Dean had been so close-- so close it had hurt, but felt strangely wonderful at the same time? The same field in which Dean had confessed that Castiel made him _happy_, where Castiel had in turn let go of his composure, embraced his confusion and the very human feeling of _attraction_? It didn't feel possible, but then, much had happened in half a day. The last time they had entered this field, Castiel had worn the body of a woman. Now, all had changed.

Because, though Castiel mourned for Jimmy, and saluted his bravery, Jimmy had not been the only one to make a sacrifice that day. Yes, the maneuver had allowed them to defeat an entire group of demons, but when Jimmy had given up his life, Castiel had given up Dean. In Jimmy's body, he was a man again, and Dean, Castiel knew-- had personally witnessed on multiple occasions-- liked women.

Absently, he stroked Jeanette's hair with the hand of the arm cradling her shoulders. Inside his mind everything was far too quiet, the once-constant chatter of his fellow angels reduced in recent months to an occasional whisper, and he yearned for the dead girl's 'voice' to once again cut into his thoughts, offering guidance and companionship. He wanted her to tell him what he was feeling, although he already knew-- at least, he believed that the colloquial term was 'heartbroken'. It had always seemed a bit melodramatic, until now; now it really felt as though something had shattered in his chest, and the pieces were stabbing him from the inside out whichever way he moved. But no one spoke to him: not Jeanette, not Jimmy, not Anna or any other angel. He was completely alone.

The combined sadnesses of the night might have been enough to make him weep, were he of a mind to embrace his thriving emotions. He wasn't, though; he was of a mind to purge them from himself entirely, to never feel again, to never feel this… _hurt_ again. So he stood, his face impassive, watching the wood pile grow.

When it was sufficient, Sam came to Castiel and gently pulled Jeanette's body from his grasp. Their burden gone, his arms fell to his sides uselessly. Sam carried the body to Dean, who was waiting with a length of white cloth, and together they wrapped it gently. With the same reverence, they covered the fabric in salt and soaked it with propane, and then Dean placed the body on the pyre and lit it in three places. Flames sprang up and spread quickly, igniting other branches and Jeanette's burial cloth. Within minutes the entire construction was alive with fire. Silently the three of them stared into the flames, watching it spew smoke like a demon being exorcised.

Castiel said a prayer, for Jeanette and for Jimmy, remembering their brief but emotional communication and hoping that somewhere better, somewhere safe, they had both been reunited with their families, perhaps even each other. Long ago he wouldn't have questioned the certainty of this, but nothing seemed certain anymore. He remembered his promise to Jimmy, to reunite him with his family in the afterlife, and realized with a sudden, twisted feeling that he was unsure how to keep it.

After the flames had died down and what remained of Jeanette's bones had been buried, unmarked, in the earth, Castiel swore he could still smell smoke. The air was heavy and stagnant, even inside the car. And he waited, in vain, for Dean to say something-- for anything to happen that could break the tension between them, denser than the air itself. But Dean did nothing, and Castiel knew his place; he had interfered enough already, gotten far too involved in the lives of humans. The most prudent course of action was to remove himself as much as possible, starting at this moment.

So when they returned to the motel, Castiel did not enter the room with Dean and Sam. He considered going to Anna, but knew that there was only one being he really wanted to talk to, and that was impossible. So instead he sat, statue-still on the bench by the parking lot, and stared at the sky, waiting for the sun to rise. He prayed for Dean, that the man would someday, soon, find the same happiness with a human that he'd professed to have found with Castiel himself. Dean deserved that, he knew: Dean deserved only the best of anything. But Castiel didn't pray for himself-- couldn't bring himself to ask God to take away the pain he was feeling. The pain was no one's fault but his own, and he would live through it. And, deeper, at the back of his mind, Castiel secretly suspected that not even God could heal a pain like this. It was the kiss of humanity, his very own Mark of Cain-- he had done wrong, he had fallen in love with a moral, and now no one could end his misery. He would bear it to the end of days.

AN: As the next update will be the last, I just wanted to take the time to thank everyone who is reviewing! It's amazing how after nine years of fanficcing I still get that thrill at seeing a new review in my inbox… yeah, a little sad I know, but oh well. Anyway, as I said, there will be one more chapter to wrap up the interpersonal aspects of _Angels_, although all the actual supernatural stuff is over. Please review, let me know what I'm doing, and if anyone would be interested in reading any follow-up oneshots? I have none written at the moment but I've really gotten attached to this fic and want to study its implications a bit more than I did in this chapter and the next. Let me know!


	13. Chapter 13

Disclaimer, timeframe, summary: see first chapter.

This is the final chapter of _Angels_ and I'm not entirely sure what to do with myself now! I hope you've enjoyed reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing it. Thanks to everyone who reviewed. I might want to continue writing in this universe, at least until the new season starts and renders it AU, so if anyone has any ideas for stories they would like to see, suggest away! I will of course fully credit any ideas I use. So without further ado, please enjoy the last chapter of _Angels_.

_In the Wake of Angels: Part XIII_

Dean let Sam shower first, not even complaining when the hot water was all but gone by the time his brother finally emerged. Then he shivered under the low-pressure stream for as long as he could take its icy bite, scrubbing the blood from his body and then just standing, tempted to cry-- but for whom, he didn't know. There were just too many options. Jimmy was dead; Jeanette was dead; and while Dean tried to make a rule of never crying strictly for himself, God, just this once he wanted to. If Cas was mad at him, or done with emotions again, or just done with him, he really didn't know what he would do: how he would-- if he _could_-- take it.

Too _damn_ many options, and so Dean set his jaw and forced the tears to recede. At long last his teeth began to chatter and he shut the water off, then dried and dressed himself mechanically.

Sam was sitting on the side of Jimmy's bed, back to the bathroom door, and said nothing when Dean entered the room. Tentatively, Dean circled the bed and plopped down beside him. He could feel the unnaturally thick silence surrounding Sam, and a sideways glance confirmed what he already knew: his brother was crying, his breathing still even but his eyes already painfully red and feverishly swollen.

In the moment that Jimmy had suggested his suicide, Dean hadn't thought of it, hadn't let it cross his mind, just how much time Sam had spent with Jimmy. Although he liked the guy, to Dean, Jimmy had always been just a shadow of Cas, a strange empty shell that could never be a complete person in its own right. All he had thought about was Cas, being pushed from Jeanette's body, and what to do to save him. To Sam, though, Jimmy Novak had been a friend.

Dean reached over and rubbed Sam's back, up and down, stiffly at first, then with more obvious affection. Sam leaned forward to hide his face in his hands, accepting the comfort, tears beginning to choke off his breathing now. It had been a long, long time since Dean had last seen his brother cry like this-- openly, audibly. For a moment they were children again; for a moment, Sammy was shorter than Dean and young enough that four years was a hell of a gap; for a moment none of the betrayal of the past year and a half had happened yet. Desperate to be comforted as well, Dean itched to pull Sam to him, huddle together like they'd done before John Winchester had taught them about the stoicism that came with manhood. Some things, though, were just too deeply ingrained. Still, he left his hand on Sam's back much longer than their father would have deemed acceptable, and even after he retracted it he didn't leave brother's side. After what seemed like a long time but was probably only a minute or so, Sam got himself under control.

"I'm sorry he had to do that," Dean said at last.

"No." Sam shook his head, his voice still croaky and wet. "He wanted to be let go. I'm just glad he waited long enough to be able to save Cas." Looking like a twenty-years-younger version of himself, Sam curled his hands into fists and dragged the bottoms across his cheeks.

"You gonna be okay, Sammy?" Dean asked gently, and Sam nodded, sniffing one last time.

"Yeah. You?"

"I don't know," Dean admitted, and then clamped his mouth shut in surprise, because he'd been planning to say yes, of course he was.

"Why aren't you with Cas?" Sam asked, annoyingly deducing exactly what Dean meant.

"Because I'm with you," Dean answered, trying to sound like Sam was an idiot for asking. But Sam didn't buy it.

"I'm okay now… so why aren't you with him now?"

Dean felt his voice shrink inside his throat, and he sat up straighter and spoke louder, trying not to let it be obvious. "I don't really think he wants me to be, Sammy."

"What makes you think that?"

"He's… bein' weird. Since leaving Jeanette."

"He's been weird in the last _six hours_?" Sam clarified, his eyebrows lifting. "He's been weird since he nearly got booted back upstairs, switched bodies, killed a bunch of demons single-handed and then buried his vessel? Yeah, Dean. It's clearly over between you two."

"Do you think you could trust me to know Cas a _little_ better than you do?" Dean growled. "He's not actin' right. I don't think he wants to see me right now."

"Or maybe you don't wanna see him," Sam suggested flatly.

"What makes you say that?"

"Because you can be an idiot sometimes."

"Thanks," Dean replied sullenly. "Thanks, Sammy."

"No," Sammy snapped, suddenly looking angry. "You can be a real idiot, Dean."

"You got a point?" Dean demanded, recoiling, defensive.

"You found someone who makes you _happy_," Sam spat, emphasizing the last word. "Happier than I've ever seen you. Someone you don't just wanna bang and toss, someone who can come _with_ us, and help you _through_ this. You found someone perfect for you and you're gonna throw that away because now he's a _man_?"

"I didn't say--"

"You didn't have to," Sam growled. "That look on your face, the first time Cas spoke from inside Jimmy again… anyone could see it."

Dean's stomach was beginning to ache. "You think Cas saw it?"

"I'm sure he did."

"You think he's avoiding me because of it?"

"I'd bet on it." Sam paused, his breathing slightly heavy. When he continued, his voice was slightly softer. "So?"

"So what?"

"So, _does_ it matter? Are you really that shallow that you care?" Sam didn't sound angry now; if anything he sounded hurt.

"It's not that shallow, Sammy," Dean said slowly, softly. "I'm straight, and I like chicks. That's never been up for debate. I don't know… what to do now. I don't know how to _feel_."

"You've never felt about any girl the way you feel about Cas. I know that. Even Cassie. Never." Dean said nothing. "How do you think I'd feel?" Sam went on, his voice barely audible. "If I could have Jessica back, if I had to take her back different… if it was still Jess, don't you think that I would?" His stomach practically on fire now, Dean hung his head.

"I'm not trying to write it off," Sam promised. "I'm not saying it won't be weird for a while. But God help me, Dean, if you walk away over _this_, I'll…." He trailed off, but Dean filled in a few endings of his own.

"I'm lost, Sammy," he muttered finally. "I don't know if I can do it. I don't know how this works."

"You think he does? Dean." Sam smiled. "He's an angel. He's got a lot less of a clue than you. And he's still willing."

"You think he is?" Dean's voice sounded hopeful to his own ears, but inside he was still cold and dizzy with doubt.

"I think you need to talk to him about that," Sam said gently, and pushed Dean off the bed, towards the door.

Cas was across the parking lot, on the same bench where they'd sat together before, after the last time the angel had switched vessels. The setting moon provided just enough light for an outline, and Dean could see that Cas's head was thrown back, staring up at the sky. Praying? Dean couldn't be sure. He approached him slowly, still absurdly terrified.

"Dean," Jimmy's voice said as Dean came within hearing range.

"Hey, Cas," he called back quietly, taking a seat on the opposite end of the bench.

"How's Sam?" Cas asked, turning to Dean.

"He's fine. He'll be fine. How are you?"

"Fine." He turned away again.

In that moment, it was all Dean could do not to launch himself sideways and collect the angel up in his arms. Instead he kicked at the ground with the toes of his bare feet. "Don't say that, Cas. Please don't say that when you're not. That's a rule about feelings you're gonna have to learn."

"Really."

Dean's lips curled upwards at the undeniable sarcasm in the angel's voice. "No, not really. But it should be." He looked over at Cas's face for the first time. Even in the dim lighting, its handsome angles were still defined, its blue eyes intense.

"I'm not fine," Cas admitted, and to see that face alive, in motion, was too much for Dean. He turned away.

"I know," he murmured.

"Then why ask?"

"To see what you'd say." They lapsed into a brief silence. Dean's hair was still wet, and when the breeze blew he struggled not to shiver.

"The Lord's work," Cas murmured after a moment, "has often required me to kill, when it was necessary." He drew a breath too sharply, too shakily. "But tonight two people died because of me, and there was no reason for it. It is unforgiveable what we… what_ I_ have left in my wake."

"It wasn't because of you," Dean promised. "It was because of this… _frickin_' war." He exhaled unintentionally on the last word, and it came out like a gust of wind. "Jimmy and Jeanette both signed up to fight, and they both gave their lives to save other people. It wasn't your fault, Cas," he murmured, and reached over, but Cas moved away. Dean's arm fell like a cannonball, his hand hitting the bench, his insides folding in on themselves like he'd been punched in the gut.

"What's wrong?" Dean pleaded, hating how his voice sounded, hating how every inch of him felt, numb and sick. "What'd I do?"

"Nothing, Dean. _I_ did what _I_ had to do."

"You went back into Jimmy."

"Back into a man."

"Yeah," Dean said quietly. "You had to do it."

"No matter what the consequences," Cas finished dully.

"Cas," Dean said slowly, closing his eyes and swallowing his pride. It went down like the last shot of the night, burning, fighting, ready to reappear the moment he let it. "You don't think I care, do you?"

Cas blinked, not looking at Dean. "Don't you?"

His bottom lip was practically shaking with the urge to say he didn't, but Dean bit down on it and told the truth. "I'm tryin' not to."

"I understand. Truly, Dean. I should never have become involved with you in the first place. It wasn't proper."

"Well, it's what you wanted, wasn't it?"

Cas exhaled slowly. "It still is."

"Then fuck what's _proper_," Dean snapped. "I don't give a damn what's _proper_."

"Then let me ask you," Cas said quietly, the steadiness in his voice sounding forced. "If you don't _give a damn_ that an angel and a human is improper, why do you care that…?" He trailed off, then inhaled sharply and tried again, his voice weaker now. The angel's pain was overwhelming Dean, palpating in his chest, cutting off his own heartbeat. "I could take another vessel, if I had to-- I could find another woman…."

"Jimmy gave his life so you could have his meatsuit," Dean said quietly. "Don't you dare make that mean nothing.

"I know," Cas murmured. "I apologize. I didn't mean that, Dean. I'll stop… I'll go away."

The moment he stood, sheer panic flooded through Dean like nothing he'd ever felt before. The hand that shot out and pulled Cas back down acted practically on its own.

"Don't go. I don't care, Cas," he pleaded, his voice gravelly.

"You don't see the problem with it?" Cas snapped, taking his hand back. "My being a man? My being an _angel_?"

"'course I do," Dean whispered. "But it makin' me feel weird… that's what I don't care about. I get it now. I can live with it being a little weird. But I can't live… I can't let you go," Dean finished, praying that Cas could fill in the real words for himself.

Cas was silent for a moment. Then, carefully, quietly he asked, "Is this how you honestly feel, Dean?"

"Yeah," Dean promised, a smile flashing over his face like lighting, genuine but gone in an instant. "Cas. I wanna be with _you_, no matter what meatsuit you're in. And if I never woulda seen that without you bein' a girl for a while, then I am _so_ sorry. And _so_ glad we'll never have to know." The ferocity of his voice startled even himself, and Cas too, from the look of it. There was an odd look on the angel's face, surprised and alarmed, like maybe he'd stepped into a puddle much more deep that he'd guessed it to be.

"I'm sorry about _everything_," Dean continued quietly. "That you ever had to feel hurt… that _I_ did that to you. Everything. I'm sorry about Jimmy and Jeanette. But you don't have to tell me you're fine, and you don't have to go through any of this alone, I _swear_. Okay?"

"Okay," Cas murmured, the word sounding strangely casual on his lips. And then his face crumpled, and he bowed his head and wept.

Dean's chest clenched at the sight of the angel's tears, air suddenly blocked from entering his lungs. This time he didn't hold back, sliding down the bench, snaking his arms around Cas's neck and pulling him close, as close as he wanted. One leg had gone under his thighs to allow him to sit sideways, and the bare toes of his other foot curled against the cool ground as he pressed their bodies together, his chest to the angel's side.

"Dean," Cas murmured, letting his head fall sideways to rest against Dean's, and it was hard to classify the sound as anything less than heartbreaking. "Dean, Dean," he said again, but his words gave way to sobbing then, weak and unsure.

"I'm here, Cas," Dean whispered roughly. "I've gotcha." Like he'd done for Sam just minutes before, he ran his hand in curving lines across Cas's back, but the difference was almost absurdly noticeable. Beneath his fingers, Cas's back felt to him like a lover's back, his skin and muscle a mere extension of Dean's skin and muscle, and the contact of their bodies less like separate entities joining up and more like two broken halves reuniting at last.

Stiltedly, gently, Cas put his arms up and pulled them chest-to-chest, and the sound of Dean's grief joined that of Cas's before he had a chance to stop it. But oddly, he realized, he wouldn't have: wouldn't have prevented himself from crying even if it were possible. Dean could feel the angel's tears wetting his shirt just as he could feel his own tears soaking into the fabric beneath his cheek, and _both_ of those things felt unbelievably good. He held Cas tighter, lost but safe in the warmth of his body and the rhythm of his teary breathing.

Cas's tears tapered off first but he didn't move, still hunched up in Dean's arms and sniffing sporadically, seeming small and scared and far more human than Dean could ever remember him being before. Blinking away the remaining wetness from his own eyes, Dean sat back slightly and pulled Cas down further, low enough that he could press a kiss against his tangle of dark hair. He inhaled without taking his lips away, tasting smoke left there from the funeral pyre hours before. Cas reacted, curling himself more tightly again Dean, who could think of nothing better to do than to kiss him again. And again.

Cas raised his face then, still wet with tears, and intercepted Dean's mouth as he moved to kiss his hair once more. Dean's eyes flew open with surprise but Cas closed his and soon Dean did too, leaning into the kiss, deepening it. Cas's chapped lips stayed shut, and Dean made no attempt to break the barrier, instead enjoying for once the purity of it, the strange newness of a closed-mouth kiss.

It didn't once cross his mind that he was kissing a man, or that he was kissing an angel. Even Jimmy had now been removed from the equation. It was just Cas now-- just him and Cas.

And really, what could be simpler than that?

End.


End file.
